TAOISEACH LEO VARADKAR has said there will be a more visible garda presence on the streets and they will “increase interventions” for people and venues not complying with physical distancing guidelines. 

Varadkar said gardaí would be “encouraging groups to disperse” but that they would not be employing “coercion”.

Speaking this afternoon as the government announced a raft of new public health measures to combat the spread of Covid-19, Varadkar said he “wouldn’t use the term lockdown” but that more measures were required. 

These measures include the closure of all non-essential shops and restrictions on gatherings of more than four people.

Varadkar had previously expressed concern about large numbers of people in public spaces over the weekend and said that further restrictions would be considered. 

Speaking today, he stopped short of saying public parks would close but said there would be increased policing of them. He also said that all crowded places, including public amenities, should be avoided

“Gardaí will increase interventions where venues are not in compliance with or groups of people are not adhering recommended social distancing,” he said.  

Varadkar said that while policing would increase, gardaí would not be engaging in “coercion”:

There’s going to be an increased presence of park rangers and gardaí in parks and public places to ensure the physical distancing is being observed. In Ireland since independence, we’ve always had policing by consent, rather than by coercion. I don’t intend for that to change. 

Adding detail about what gardaí and park rangers would be doing, he said they would have: “A bit more of a visible presence on the streets and in public places encouraging groups to disperse, encouraging people to move on.

“So that we don’t have the scenes that we saw on Sunday, which we haven’t really seen most days but we did see on Sunday, of overcrowding in public places which really went against everything that was being advised up until now,” he added. 

Varadkar said he didn’t want to be “berating people” for going to packed public places on Sunday but that there will now be “a much stronger garda presence to make sure that doesn’t happen and to encourage people to disperse and move on”. 

Last week, emergency powers passed by the Dáil gave gardaí the power to detain people who may pass on Covid-19 to others. 

Speaking this afternoon, Varadkar said that he hoped this power would be “used sparingly, if at all”.