About 175 people escaped from mandatory quarantine

More than 10,000 people stayed for ten days in designated hotels, with a Covid-19 positivity rate of 5.7 per cent, before the system was halted last week

Gardaí were given the names and passport photos of the 175 people who had absconded from the quarantine hotels and they managed to find 35 of them and return them to the hotels. Picture: Getty

Some 175 people escaped from the state’s system of mandatory hotel quarantine before it was wound down last month.

The state gave a contract to the Tifco hotel group to operate the mandatory quarantine system. The company put up the arriving passengers in its Crowne Plaza hotels in Blanchardstown and Santry, the Holiday Inn Express in Santry, and the Hard Rock Hotel on Exchange Street in Dublin city.

In total, more than 10,000 people were ...