The 5km rule, which will soon to be 20km, is unjustified and should not be retained, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin has said.
At present people in the Republic can exercise during the
Covid19 lock-down but they must stay within 5km of home.
The restriction began as a 2km rule but was then extended
to 5km, when Phase 1 of the easing of lock-down began. Furthermore, when Phase
2 begins on June 8th it will be increased to 20km.
The rule has been very restrictive for cyclists as it means training or leisure riding is very constrained in the Republic, though no rule restricting people to within a set radius of home exists in the North.
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Taoiseach Leo
Varadkar said the current conditions, and the plan already set out to ease them
over a period to August, must be left in place.
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But Micheál Martin, who is expected to be the next Taoiseach if his Fianna Fail party goes into power with Varadkar’s Fine Gael, says there is “no remaining serious justification” for kilometre-based restrictions.
“The public health concern is how people behave around others – not how far they are from their home,” he said.
“In fact, the research shows that this limit may in fact
be forcing people in urban areas into more crowded situations.
“A serious concern though is that there is a very real
danger of a growing division in the population between those who fear change
and those who are angry about restrictions which appear to not be fully
justified.
“Certainly people are entitled to look at measures
implemented in countries where the community spread of the virus has not spiked
and ask why the situation in Ireland should be so different.”
He added restrictions that were left in place and which
the public saw no justification for would not be respected by the public.
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