Gardaí called to UCD campus six times over groups playing sports

GARDAÍ had to be called to the pitches of University College Dublin on six occasions during lockdown after members of the public flouted Covid-19 rules by meeting up in groups to play sport and refusing to stop the activity.

A spokeswoman for the university said the sports pitches have been actively monitored since the beginning of Level 5 restrictions on December 29 by a number of means including: monitoring of CCTV where available, vehicle and foot patrols.

When a group is discovered by security staff, they are approached and reminded of public health guidance around exercise and sporting events in line with Level 5 restrictions and typically members of the public comply with this guidance.

“There have been 21 instances recorded since the beginning of Level 5 restrictions where individuals initially refused to comply with instructions from security staff to leave sporting facilities.

“Each of these instances were escalated to the campus duty manager who directed available resources to the area concerned to ensure that social distancing was observed.

“In six of these cases, the campus duty manager contacted Donnybrook Garda Station to request assistance intervention.

“In addition, during the school mid-term last week, and better weather conditions, we have increased the presence of security throughout the campus.”

It comes as the latest report on Covid-19 showed two outbreaks last week were in a university or college location.

A round of on-campus mass Covid-19 testing is to take place over a number of days at the University of Limerick, to help manage a fresh outbreak of the virus among the student population. Meanwhile, a further 56 Covid-19 related deaths were reported yesterday with the victims ranging in age from 16to97.

An additional 574 people were newly diagnosed with the virus with a median age of 34.

Among the new cases, 175 were in Dublin, 57 in Limerick, 43 in Kildare, 37 in Galway, 35 in Meath, while the remaining 227 were spread across 18 other counties.

Deputy chief medical officer Dr Ronan Glynn said people should starve the virus by limiting the numbers they come in contact with.

Progress

“We continue to see good progress, but this needs to be sustained. It is vital that we get our children back to school over the coming weeks. A key part of making this a success will be our continued collective buy-in to the public health measures that are tried and tested.

“Given the increased transmissibility of the virus now, we must continue to limit our social contacts.”

There were 35 more admissions to hospital in the 24 hours before 2pm yesterday, when 652 were in various wards with the virus, including 137 in intensive care.

There was strong dismay among carers looking after sick and disabled relatives at home that they were not moved up the priority list for vaccination.