The Irish Government signed regulations that will introduce a system of mandatory quarantine for arrivals into the State.

A legal requirement to quarantine has been introduced for all travellers (except if your journey originates in Northern Ireland) – with very limited exceptions.

This applies for all arrivals into Republic of Ireland from 4 February 2021:

• 14-day quarantine period must be undertaken at the address specified on the Passenger Locator Form.
• persons who travel from another country to Ireland, and arrive via Northern Ireland, must also observe the mandatory quarantine regimeIf you do not fulfil the legal requirement for mandatory quarantine you are committing an offence and can be fined up to €2,500 or get a prison sentence of up to 6 months, or both.
  All travellers coming into Ireland must:
• complete a Covid-19 Passenger Locator Form. If you don’t fill out this form you can be fined up to €2,500 or get a prison sentence of up to 6 months.
• provide evidence that you have a negative or ‘not detected’ result from a COVID-19 Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) test carried out no more than 72 hours before you arrive into Ireland, or have evidence that you are exempt from this legal requirement
  If you have been overseas and travel through Northern Ireland – you do not currently have to fill out the form, however new regulations will make this mandatory.
• An exemption from completing the form is in place for providers of essential supply chain services such as hauliers, pilots and maritime staff.

You may only leave your place of residence during the quarantine period for unavoidable reasons of an emergency nature to protect a person’s health or welfare, or to leave the State.

You may leave to take a RT-PCR test no less than 5 days after your arrival – if you receive written confirmation that the result of this test is negative/ ‘not detected’ your period of quarantine can end.

You must retain the written confirmation of your test result for at least 14 days.

If your journey began in South Africa or Brazil you must complete the full 14 days of quarantine – regardless of whether you have a negative test result. Further work on additional legislation to implement mandatory quarantine at a designated facility for those arriving from countries with variants of concern, such as Brazil and South Africa is being progressed and will be implemented as soon as possible.

There are some limited exemptions from the requirement to complete mandatory quarantine:

• patients travelling for urgent medical reasons
• international transport workers in possession of an Annex 3 Certificate; Drivers of Heavy Goods Vehicles; Aviation and maritime crew
  Gardaí/defence forces, while carrying out their duties
• travel to the State pursuant to an arrest warrant, extradition proceedings or other mandatory legal obligation
• diplomats, or travel to perform the function of or provide services to an office holder or elected representative
• transit passengers who arrive for the purposes of travelling to another state, and who do not leave the port or airportThe following may temporarily leave their place of quarantine when necessary to perform their essential function – and only for as long as strictly required:
• a person required to carry out essential repair, maintenance, construction or safety assurance of critical transport infrastructure, critical utility infrastructure, manufacturing services, information services, or communication services
• a member of staff of an international organisation, or person invited, carrying out functions required for the proper functioning of such organisations and which cannot be carried out remotely
• a passenger who has been provided with written certification by Sport Ireland related to an internationally important competitive level event
• journalists, carrying out their professional functions

However we recommend that anyone considering travel to Ireland should consult the following Government website beforehand