Health (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 2021

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Citation: IR No. 24/2021
• Year: 2021

• Full Act
• Act by Section
• Act As Enacted
• Amendments
• PDF annotated
• PDF unannotated

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Number 24 of 2021

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HEALTH (AMENDMENT) (NO. 2) ACT 2021

REVISED

Updated to 10 January 2022

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This Revised Act is an administrative consolidation of the Health (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 2021. It is prepared by the Law Reform Commission in accordance with its function under the Law Reform Commission Act 1975 (3/1975) to keep the law under review and to undertake revision and consolidation of statute law.

All Acts up to and including the Maritime Area Planning Act 2021 (50/2021), enacted 23 December 2021, and all statutory instruments up to and including the European Communities (Safety of Toys) (Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations 2022 (S.I. No. 15 of 2022), made 11 January 2022, were considered in the preparation of this Revised Act.

Disclaimer: While every care has been taken in the preparation of this Revised Act, the Law Reform Commission can assume no responsibility for and give no guarantees, undertakings or warranties concerning the accuracy, completeness or up to date nature of the information provided and does not accept any liability whatsoever arising from any errors or omissions. Please notify any errors, omissions and comments by email to

revisedacts@lawreform.ie.

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Number 24 of 2021

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HEALTH (AMENDMENT) (NO. 2) ACT 2021

REVISED

Updated to 10 January 2022

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Introduction

This Revised Act presents the text of the Act as it has been amended since enactment, and preserves the format in which it was passed.

Related legislation

This Act is not collectively cited with any other Act.

Annotations

This Revised Act is annotated and includes textual and non-textual amendments, statutory instruments made pursuant to the Act and previous affecting provisions.

An explanation of how to read annotations is available at

www.lawreform.ie/annotations.

Material not updated in this revision

Where other legislation is amended by this Act, those amendments may have been superseded by other amendments in other legislation, or the amended legislation may have been repealed or revoked. This information is not represented in this revision but will be reflected in a revision of the amended legislation if one is available.

Where legislation or a fragment of legislation is referred to in annotations, changes to this legislation or fragment may not be reflected in this revision but will be reflected in a revision of the legislation referred to if one is available.

A list of legislative changes to any Act, and to statutory instruments from 1972, may be found linked from the page of the Act or statutory instrument at

www.irishstatutebook.ie.

Acts which affect or previously affected this revision

• Health and Criminal Justice (Covid-19) (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 2021 (46/2021)

All Acts up to and including Maritime Area Planning Act 2021 (50/2021), enacted 23 December 2021, were considered in the preparation of this revision.

Statutory instruments which affect or previously affected this revision

• Health (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 2021 (Commencement) Order 2021 (S.I. No. 383 of 2021)

All statutory instruments up to and including European Communities (Safety of Toys) (Amendment) (No. 3) Regulations 2022 (S.I. No. 15 of 2022), made 11 January 2022, were considered in the preparation of this revision.

Resolutions of the Houses of the Oireachtas which affect this revision

• Resolultion of Dáil Éireann: Debates Volume 1010 No. 5, 14 July 2021, Mandatory Hotel Quarantine Extension: Motion

• Resolution of Seanad Éireann: Debates Volume 278 No. 4, 16 July 2021, Mandatory Hotel Quarantine Extension: Motion

• Resolution of Dáil Éireann: Debates Volume 1008 No. 2, 2 June 2021 - Health (Amendment) Act 2021: Motion

• Resolution of Seanad Éireann: Debates Volume 276 No. 8, 31 May 2021, Health (Amendment) Act 2021: Motion

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Number 24 of 2021

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HEALTH (AMENDMENT) (NO. 2) ACT 2021

REVISED

Updated to 10 January 2022

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Acts Referred to

Companies Act 2014 (No. 38)

Health (Amendment) Act 2021 (No. 1)

Health Act 1947 (No. 28)

Legal Services Regulation Act 2015 (No. 65)

Registration of Clubs Acts 1904 to 2008

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Number 24 of 2021

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HEALTH (AMENDMENT) (NO. 2) ACT 2021

REVISED

Updated to 10 January 2022

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An Act to—

A. make, on a temporary basis, exceptional provision, in the public interest and having regard to the manifest and grave risk to human life and public health posed by the spread of the disease known as Covid-19 and variants of that disease and in order to mitigate, where practicable, the effect of the spread of that disease; to amend the Health Act 1947 for that purpose; to provide for the lawful operation of certain indoor premises subject to certain conditions notwithstanding restrictions in place in relation to such premises under that Act; to provide, for those purposes, for a robust and enforceable system of verification of the health status of certain persons, including vaccination or recovery status; to confer a power on the Minister for Health to prescribe matters related to the foregoing; to provide for enforcement; and to provide for related matters;

B. amend certain provisions relating to pre-travel requirements in respect of certain persons arriving in the State; to amend the period to be spent by a person in quarantine at a designated facility in certain circumstances; to make provision in relation to the power of the Minister for Health to make regulations in relation to tests that may be taken for the purpose of detecting Covid-19 in the context of the requirement to quarantine at a designated facility and to confer a power on that Minister to prescribe the purpose for which such a test may be taken; to provide that quarantine at a designated facility shall not be required for certain persons arriving in the State in certain circumstances and to confer a power on the Minister for Health to make regulations in relation to those circumstances; for those purposes, and for related purposes, to amend the Health Act 1947; and to provide for related matters.

[21st July, 2021]

In relation to paragraph A of the foregoing:

WHEREAS a public health emergency has arisen and continues in the State by virtue of the spread of the disease known as Covid-19;

AND WHEREAS that disease, and the emergence of variants of the disease, and particularly the Delta variant, with evidence of increased transmissibility and the potential to evade immune response, and the spread of those variants, continues to present a very serious risk to public health and it is essential that persons testing positive or who are asymptomatic for the disease including in particular, variants of the disease, are restricted on a temporary basis from access to certain indoor premises given that the transmission of the disease has proven difficult to prevent;

AND WHEREAS a number of vaccinations for active immunisation to prevent the disease have been identified, authorised for use in the State and administered to part of the population of the State, and the availability of such vaccinations provides an opportunity to ease certain restrictions in force provided certain conditions are adhered to;

AND WHEREAS the existence of immunity as a result of having recovered from infection with Covid-19 also provides, in certain contexts, an opportunity to ease certain restrictions in force provided certain conditions are adhered to;

AND WHEREAS certain indoor social activities are by their nature high risk and are likely to involve significant levels of social mixing in environments conducive to disease transmission, which risk is diminished where participants in these activities have immunity from the disease;

AND WHEREAS the likelihood of transmitting, and the consequences of infection with, that disease are diminished in the case of persons who have been treated with such vaccines or who have recovered from infection with Covid-19, to the extent that allowing such persons to participate in certain aspects of the normal social and economic functioning of society presents a lesser threat to the State’s efforts to prevent, minimise, limit or reduce the risk of persons being infected with the disease than so allowing people who have not been so treated or who have not so recovered;

AND WHEREAS the easing of certain restrictive measures imposed on persons in the State as regards certain indoor premises is rendered safer from a public health perspective when accompanied by a robust and enforceable system of verification of vaccination or immunity status;

Be it enacted by the Oireachtas as follows:

PART 1

Preliminary and General

1.

Short title, commencement and operation

1. (1) This Act may be cited as the Health (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 2021.

(2) This Act shall come into operation on such day or days as the Minister for Health may appoint by order or orders either generally or with reference to any particular purpose or provision and different days may be so appointed for different purposes or provisions.

F1[(3) Part 2 shall continue in operation for the period ending on the later of—

(a) the 31st day of March 2022, or

(b) the date that is specified in a resolution passed by each House of the Oireachtas under subsection (4).]

F1[(4) Each House of the Oireachtas may, on or before the 31st day of March 2022, pass a resolution to continue Part 2 in operation for such period, not exceeding 3 months, that ends on a date specified in the resolution.]

(5) Part 3 shall continue in operation until the date on which sections 2, 7 and 8 of the Health (Amendment) Act 2021 shall cease to have effect.

Annotations:

Amendments:

F1

Substituted (10.01.2022) by Health and Criminal Justice (Covid-19) (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 2021 (46/2021), s. 4, commenced as per s. 5(3).

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