# Can under 70’s go for a 5 Km Drive ?



## twofor1 (6 May 2020)

It is clear everybody can now exercise within 5 Km of their home, the only clear reference to driving though is for the over 70’s who can now exercise or go for a drive within the 5 Km.

Any reference for others that I have seen is they can now exercise within 5 Km of home, but no mention of driving one way or the other.

So does anyone know - can under 70's, drive the 3 Km to the sea and then take a 2 Km walk along the coast ?

Or just go for a 5 Km drive ?


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## Baby boomer (6 May 2020)

twofor1 said:


> It is clear everybody can now exercise within 5 Km of their home, the only clear reference to driving though is for the over 70’s who can now exercise or go for a drive within the 5 Km.
> 
> Any reference for others that I have seen is they can now exercise within 5 Km of home, but no mention of driving one way or the other.
> 
> ...


Good question.  You won't find the correct answer in the newspapers or on RTE.  You need to go to the source, Statutory Instrument 121 of 2020.





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						S.I. No. 121/2020 - Health Act 1947 (Section 31A -Temporary Restrictions) (Covid-19) Regulations 2020
					

The electronic Irish Statute Book (eISB) comprises the Acts of the Oireachtas (Parliament), Statutory Instruments, Legislation Directory, Constitution and a limited number of pre-1922 Acts.



					www.irishstatutebook.ie
				




It says you cannot leave your residence without a "reasonable excuse." It then goes on to give a non-exhaustive list of things that are accepted as reasonable excuse.  This list includes leaving your house to_* "exercise, either alone or with other persons residing in the relevant residence, within a 2 kilometre radius of that residence" *_
(Note: the two km radius has been increased to 5km by a later Statutory Instrument.)

So, the answer is YES, you can leave your home, drive to another location and take your exercise there, as long as you remain within a 5km radius.

Some further points: The 5km radius ONLY applies if the reasonable excuse for your journey is exercise.  If it's going to the shops, bank, post office, off-license, doctor, chipper, etc, there's no geographic limit.  You could go 200 miles to do your shopping if you wanted to!

Secondly, the Regulations don't distinguish at all between the over-70s and under-70s.  The restrictions apply equally to both.

As you can see, there is a huge difference between the government guidelines and the actual law.  The media continually confuse the two by saying things like over-70s are "*forbidden*" or "*not allowed*" to leave home. It's more correct to say they're *advised* not to leave home etc.  I don't know whether this is deliberately misleading or just lazy journalism.  I suspect the latter.

There is a similar misuse of the phrase "essential journey".  I believe the standard question at Garda checkpoints is along the lines of_* "Is your journey essential?"  *_It doesn't have to be. It just has to be* "reasonable" *or fall within one of the specified reasons set out in the Statutory Instrument.


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