Covid-19: British expats using short Dublin stays to get around Far East travel bans

British travellers returning to Far East countries such as Singapore are using Ireland for short stays to work around Covid-19 bans in foreign countries on direct travel from the United Kingdom.

Expat British nationals are renting properties in Dublin for short-term layovers of 14-21 days before travelling on to Singapore and other southeast Asian countries as they manage travel restrictions that prevent them returning directly from the UK.

Travellers who have been in the UK 14 days prior to travel, including for transit, are not permitted to enter or transit through Singapore, while travellers who have visited the UK for more than two hours within the past 21 days are denied entry to Hong Kong.

Entry into Malaysia for all British nationals is prohibited, though there are exemptions for British nationals who are permanent residents, while non-Indonesian travellers are prohibited from entering the country with some exceptions for permanent non-national residents.

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Expat British nationals are bypassing these restrictions on direct travel from the UK by using Ireland as a temporary stay-over location and renting properties in Dublin.

The free movement of people between Ireland and Britain under the Common Travel Area allows these travellers to fly into and stay in Ireland before travelling on to the Far East.

Arrivals into Ireland must quarantine for 14 days either at home or in a hotel, with the address of their quarantine specified on the passenger locator form they fill out on arrival. They can cut short their quarantine if they can produce a negative PCR test after five days.

Mandatory quarantine

One source told The Irish Times they knew of three contacts who were either renting Airbnbs in Dublin “killing time” before flying on to the Far East to abide by the travel rules, or who plan to travel to Dublin.

Ireland is an attractive transit location as the Government has not yet fully implemented mandatory quarantine so people “can get out and about, and have walks”, the source said.

"Ireland is an easy option for [British] expat escapees: cheap flights, lax quarantine implementation and doable expat routes to Asia like Doha that don't require quarantine if transiting only," said the Singapore-based expat.

“As long as [these] passengers can declare they have been in Ireland for 14 days prior to flying, that’s all the authorities care about – they have not been in the UK.”

Transiting passengers travelling on to another destination through Qatar can transfer through Doha to onward flights to Asia without having to quarantine.

Messages shared on private social media groups show that one expat cancelled his travel from Northern Ireland to Singapore after the ban on travel from the UK was introduced. He instead crossed the Irish Border and stayed in the Republic for two weeks before flying out to the Far East.

“It seems like a hell of a layover in Ireland, but most have no choice; long-term stay visas or permanent residency visa holders can lapse if the holder is out of the country too long,” said the source.

“This is another reason to swallow the time and expense involved in hiking to Ireland for a couple of weeks.”

The Department of Justice said that its border management unit had not identified this issue but had noticed an increase in passengers transiting through Dublin from the UK, though the vast majority of these passengers transit through the airport without entering the State.

A spokesman said the majority of the small number of passengers travelling into Dublin Airport were residents in Ireland returning from overseas travel, either essential or returning from holidays.

Non-essential international travel is an offence and liable for a €500 fixed penalty notice.

The department said there were 13,606 passenger arrivals into Dublin Airport for the week starting January 30th, a reduction of 94 per cent on the same week last year.

To date, 99.6 per cent of arriving passengers had complied with the requirement to present evidence of a negative Covid-19 test at boarding and on arrival to the State.

‘Back door’

Concerns have already been raised about passengers travelling the other direction to the UK, with Dublin being used as a "back door" into Britain from the United Arab Emirates and Portugal, from which the UK has banned flights but where flights are still operating with Ireland.

UK health secretary Matt Hancock introduced punitive travel curbs on Tuesday under which passengers who conceal travel to the UK from a list of 33 "red list" countries, including the UAE and Portugal, could face a 10-year jail sentence.

The Scottish government will, from Monday, require all people arriving into the country on direct international flights to enter quarantine hotels.

The Irish Government plans to publish legislation next week to enforce mandatory hotel quarantine for arrivals from South Africa and Brazil to prevent the spread of new coronavirus variants.