EISG Sligo Trip Report

I think that exemption is only where you’re aircrew as part of being a “transport worker”. So I don’t think it applies to private flights.

I suspect the restriction will be gone by 17 July, but we don’t know for sure yet.

Is there any talk of the Scottish restrictions on travel to/from the Republic being removed? If the Irish restrictions are removed on 17 July, then I’m hoping to travel to Scotland then.

Emir wrote:

Is it written somewhere or it’s just assumption?

The legislation is rather hard to follow, as it’s an old act, built on my 10’s of amendments in the past year.
But I think the exemptions extend from this amendment which introduced the first restrictions and then exempted some people.

“international passenger” means a person, other than a child, who arrives in the
State at a port or airport from a place outside the State, but does not include:
[…]
(a) a person who arrives in the State from Northern Ireland;
(b) a person who arrives at the port or airport for the purposes of
passing through that port or airport in order to travel to another
state, and who does not leave the port or airport;
(c) an international transport worker who arrives in the State in the
course of performing his or her duties;
(d) an aircraft pilot, other aircrew, maritime master or maritime
crew who arrives in the State in the course of performing his or
her duties
(e) a person to whom the privileges and immunities conferred by -
(i) the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations done at
Vienna on the 18th day of April 1961, or
(ii) the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations done at
Vienna on the 24th day of April 1963,
apply in the State;
(f) a person to whom the privileges and immunities conferred by an
international agreement or arrangement apply in the State,
pursuant to the Diplomatic Relations and Immunities Acts 1967
to 2006 or any other enactment;

Given the context, I understand “his or her duties” to be their work.

The official web page linked to earlier describes it as

People who are travelling in the course of their duties and are an international transport worker in possession of an annex 3 certificate, the driver of a heavy goods vehicle or are aviation crew or maritime crew

That’s worded slightly different to the legislation, but uses the same terms.

Whether you could argue that you “arrived in the state in the course of performing your duties” as a pilot on a private flight I guess is up to each of us to decide for ourselves based on the circumstances of our flight, and how confident we are in that argument.

This might be useful to Jacko

International Travel UK Post 17 July

Travel to UK and USA
The approach to travel outside the EU/EEA will also apply to travel to and from Great Britain and the US.

Which is

Passengers arriving into Ireland from outside EU/EEA
From 19 July, Ireland will also broadly align itself to the EU approach to non-essential travel into the EU from third countries.

To protect its citizens against importation of variants, an ‘emergency brake’ mechanism will be coordinated at EU level to react swiftly to the emergence of a variant of concern or variant of interest.

Government advice will be to avoid travel to a country where the emergency brake has been applied.

Scenario One – journey originates in a country to which the EU has not applied an ‘Emergency Brake’
If passenger has valid proof of vaccination, no travel-related testing or quarantine will be necessary.

If passenger does not have valid proof of vaccination, they will need to:

present evidence of a negative PCR test result within 72 hours prior to arrival into the country
self-quarantine
undergo post-arrival testing – this will be provided through the HSE

So looks like, if you have your vaccines then you won’t need anything further (no testing nor quarantine and no need for an essential reason).

Hopefully by then Scotland will have also removed the restrictions on movement with Ireland.

Airborne_Again wrote:

It could simply mean a pilot who is not travelling as pax. Not that I know Irish lawspeak subtleties, but “duty” doesn’t necessarily mean an obligation imposed on you by someone else but also an obligation you have taken on voluntarily, such as piloting your own light aircraft.

It could. That’s why I said it’s up to each person to make their own interpretation of it. I’m not lawyer

But if I change the wording a little and ask if I arrived at the supermarket in the course of my duties as a car driver it starts to sound a little silly.

Not many cases have appeared in front of a judge here yet, but the ones that have, have been taken very seriously, particularly where they involved avoidance of quarantine. But on the other hand, there are hundreds if not thousands breaking these laws everyday and nothing happening because they have their “reasonable excuse” ready.