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 ?
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.
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.