Gardai have stepped up their enforcement of the ‘5km from home’ rule, with over 400 on the spot fines issued in the past week.
While the vast majority of people who have been fined are
motorists and walkers, gardai have also reported a number of cases involving
cyclists. They have outlined the details of a couple of those cycling-related
cases.
Wicklow gardai have stopped cyclists at checkpoints on
roads leading to the uplands of the county and in Co Galway last week two
cyclists out training were fined €100 for exercising more than 5km from home.
The new on the spot fines came into operation on Monday
of last week, January 11th. Between last Monday and last Friday there were
fewer than 80 fines imposed on people across the country.
But over last weekend there were more than 300 fines
imposed, a very significant increase. The activity over the past week represented,
by far, the most sanctions imposed by gardai for Covid-19 rule breaches since
the pandemic began in the Republic almost a year ago.
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If you are out and about on the bike – or out for a jog
or a walk – it is perhaps more important than ever now that you stay within 5km
of home.
The risk of incurring a sanction – in the shape of one of
the new €100 fines - is definitely much higher now than at any time since the
pandemic began, while Covid19 cases remain very high.
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Up until now, gardai have been stopping people and if
they were found to be more than 5km from home for exercise purposes they were
spoken to. If they agreed to return home, no action was taken against them by
gardai.
It is unclear if that opportunity to return home is still
being offered to everyone. However, the number of cases going straight to a
fine, with no chance offered to turn around and go home, has clearly increased
very significantly in a week.
The new on the spot fines are much easier for gardai to impose
compared to the previous requirement for gardai to prosecute people via the DPP’s
office; which was slower and more cumbersome.
Under the current Level 5 rules, exercise is allowed but
it must be done within a 5km radius of a person’s home. There are some
exemptions for elite athletes, but that only applies to a very small number of
cyclists in Ireland.
People can venture further than 5km from home for a
number of essential reasons – for work, to attend a doctor’s appointment and
for shopping for essentials, among other reasons.
However, that provision to travel further than 5km from
home for essential journeys never applies to exercise, including cycling.
Under the current rules, the only way a cyclist could
train further than 5km from home and stay within the rules is by cycling to
work and treating that commute as training, if you cannot work from home.
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