Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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2178. To ask the Minister for Health the number of persons who were subject to mandatory hotel quarantine in Dublin who have paid for their quarantine costs to date; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20040/21]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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As of 19th April, there are 576 people in mandatory hotel quarantine and 532 people have completed their quarantine stay in a designated facility.

As of 18th April, there have been 509 ‘walk ins’ – mainly people arriving from designated states without a mandatory hotel pre-booking and also a small number of arrivals from non-designated states with ‘non-detected’ PCR test result in the previous 72 hours.

There have been 27 Covid-19 detected cases in guests undergoing quarantine in a designated facility. 4 of the resident cases are confirmed variants of concern (VoC ) with analysis ongoing on other test results.

All guests are responsible for the full cost of their stay in a quarantine facility, including their initial booking as well as any additional costs which might be incurred.

It should be noted that in some limited and exceptional cases, such as emergency repatriation of a citizen, a deferral on the requirement to pre-pay for quarantine while booking may be granted by the Department of Foreign Affairs. This deferral does not remove the responsibility of such guests to pay for the full cost of their quarantine in a designated facility.

Additionally, I understand that my colleague the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science is establishing a refund mechanism for students returning from Erasmus programmes who are required to undergo mandatory quarantine in a designated facility.