Disease Outbreak - power to quarantine?

Azizur Rahman · 31-01-2020 09:57PM #1

Hello,

With cornavirus making headlines and it popping up next door, I was curious about what options the government / HSE / emergency services have available to enforce a quarantine? E.g people confirmed to have a disease but refuse to stay in a quarantine zone? Thanks.

hullaballoo · 31-01-2020 10:10PM

Wouldn't be too difficult to argue that preventing a potential epidemic outweighs the temporary detention of an individual.

Peregrinus · 01-02-2020 03:24PM

Health Act 1947 Pt 4 Chapter 1 deals with infectious diseases, and provides for the detention and isolation of a person who is a probable source of infection. Check out s. 38 for the procedures and safeguards involved. Note that there was an amendment in 1953. I do not know if the provisions have ever been invoked in practice.

lozenges · 01-02-2020 03:26PM

Provisions already exist for this. It is possible to quarantine somebody with e.g. active TB against their will (although obviously it is pretty uncommon, as they usually voluntarily accept treatment).

So I assume that can be expanded for other highly infectious and dangerous diseases.

Victor · 01-02-2020 10:28PM

Apparently there is someone in Peamount Hoapital with particularly virulent TB, who has been there since the 1960s. I get the impression he is happy enough to be there, but one can understand others would want to leave.

While the constitution places restrictions on detaining someone, that is balanced by the public good.

Carawaystick · 03-02-2020 08:44PM

J.H. .v. Russell [2007] shows there is very little balancing, if there's no law permitting detention; the person must be released

https://www.lawlibrary.ie/media/lawlibrary/media/Secure/20130313JudicialReviewOHiggins.pdf para39 or so

Victor · 03-02-2020 10:31PM

Carawaystick wrote: »

if there's no law permitting detention; the person must be released

Oh sure, I was commenting on the constitutionality of the legislation.

Could I ask, why is there a difference between Caffrey –v- Governor of Portlaoise Prison (paragraph 48 of the CPD lecture), where no stay was given and F.X .v. Clinical Director of the Central Mental Hospital and the DPP (paragraph 34) which was stayed for 2 days. I can understand the law -v- practicalities, but shouldn't judges rule on the law?

L1011 · 16-02-2020 02:17AM

Victor wrote: »

Apparently there is someone in Peamount Hoapital with particularly virulent TB, who has been there since the 1960s. I get the impression he is happy enough to be there, but one can understand others would want to leave.

While the constitution places restrictions on detaining someone, that is balanced by the public good.

In 2006 there was a media article claiming the sole TB patient there was only there for a few years at the time - https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/the-last-man-in-the-tb-sanitorium-26409485.html - so I'm not sure if that's entirely accurate.

Disease Outbreak - power to quarantine?

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