HEALTH (AMENDMENT) (NO. 2) ACT 2021

REVISED

Updated to 10 January 2022

HEALTH (AMENDMENT) (NO. 2) ACT 2021

REVISED

Updated to 10 January 2022

An Act to—

A. make, on a temporary basis, exceptional provision, in the public interest and having regard to the manifest and grave risk to human life and public health posed by the spread of the disease known as Covid-19 and variants of that disease and in order to mitigate, where practicable, the effect of the spread of that disease; to amend the Health Act 1947 for that purpose; to provide for the lawful operation of certain indoor premises subject to certain conditions notwithstanding restrictions in place in relation to such premises under that Act; to provide, for those purposes, for a robust and enforceable system of verification of the health status of certain persons, including vaccination or recovery status; to confer a power on the Minister for Health to prescribe matters related to the foregoing; to provide for enforcement; and to provide for related matters;

B. amend certain provisions relating to pre-travel requirements in respect of certain persons arriving in the State; to amend the period to be spent by a person in quarantine at a designated facility in certain circumstances; to make provision in relation to the power of the Minister for Health to make regulations in relation to tests that may be taken for the purpose of detecting Covid-19 in the context of the requirement to quarantine at a designated facility and to confer a power on that Minister to prescribe the purpose for which such a test may be taken; to provide that quarantine at a designated facility shall not be required for certain persons arriving in the State in certain circumstances and to confer a power on the Minister for Health to make regulations in relation to those circumstances; for those purposes, and for related purposes, to amend the Health Act 1947; and to provide for related matters.

[21st July, 2021]

In relation to paragraph A of the foregoing:

WHEREAS a public health emergency has arisen and continues in the State by virtue of the spread of the disease known as Covid-19;

AND WHEREAS that disease, and the emergence of variants of the disease, and particularly the Delta variant, with evidence of increased transmissibility and the potential to evade immune response, and the spread of those variants, continues to present a very serious risk to public health and it is essential that persons testing positive or who are asymptomatic for the disease including in particular, variants of the disease, are restricted on a temporary basis from access to certain indoor premises given that the transmission of the disease has proven difficult to prevent;

AND WHEREAS a number of vaccinations for active immunisation to prevent the disease have been identified, authorised for use in the State and administered to part of the population of the State, and the availability of such vaccinations provides an opportunity to ease certain restrictions in force provided certain conditions are adhered to;

AND WHEREAS the existence of immunity as a result of having recovered from infection with Covid-19 also provides, in certain contexts, an opportunity to ease certain restrictions in force provided certain conditions are adhered to;

AND WHEREAS certain indoor social activities are by their nature high risk and are likely to involve significant levels of social mixing in environments conducive to disease transmission, which risk is diminished where participants in these activities have immunity from the disease;

AND WHEREAS the likelihood of transmitting, and the consequences of infection with, that disease are diminished in the case of persons who have been treated with such vaccines or who have recovered from infection with Covid-19, to the extent that allowing such persons to participate in certain aspects of the normal social and economic functioning of society presents a lesser threat to the State’s efforts to prevent, minimise, limit or reduce the risk of persons being infected with the disease than so allowing people who have not been so treated or who have not so recovered;

AND WHEREAS the easing of certain restrictive measures imposed on persons in the State as regards certain indoor premises is rendered safer from a public health perspective when accompanied by a robust and enforceable system of verification of vaccination or immunity status;

Be it enacted by the Oireachtas as follows: