Guards stopping everyone heading into town this morning at the Five Lamps causing a tailback to Marino. Presumably everybody heading into town at that hour (8am) thinks they are an essential worker or is dropping a kid to school. Just seems like an utterly pointless inconvenience to people.
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Iāve said it before, but my feeling is that the whole thing is to make it as inconvenient as possible rather than actually being an enforcement. Sure they are on motorways stopping people, where are they supposed to turn around if they are not on an essential journey? the next exit? Iāve not travelled to Dublin in this lockdown, and main reason being is that I couldnt be dealing with any delays on motorways. Thats more of a reason not to travel than the whole 5km or essential journey craic.
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The mobility index must be on the increase as the worry index falls away.
A simple plan of action for check pointsā¦
HI VIZ hanging off the passenger seat = waved through every time.
They have pushed this to boundaries of what is constitutional. The failure to issue passports is particularly egregious as itās a primary Id document for lots of things and a person may well have to travel at very short notice on an emergency.
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its not the guards checking me I have an issue with, its the delays and traffic jams that is the issue. Any time Iāve been out I have letters written up for essential services, not they are worth a damn or anything, but its not the risk of getting caught is the issue or having to explain things to a guard.
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From personal experience of being on the road most days of most weeks in the past 12 months the delays have been few & far between.
In saying that, traffic around Dublin last week couldnāt all have been counted as essential. Checkpoints tbf waved myself through and seemed only interested in cars that looked to be out for leisure.
Checkpoints very scarce in general.
The next two public holidays are critical
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yeah it doesnt sound as bad as what it was back in October or whenever the last big crackdown was. There was hour long delays on the M50 that Iād have no interest in being in. But point being, I think their aim was to cause disruption to dissuade travel.
That and the handy overtime
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I think itās pretty clear that that is the aim alright. Itās less heavy handed than handing out fines left right and centre.
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Emergency passports are still being processed, same as ever.
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Which is fair enough considering only essential travel should be happening to be fair.
Definitely not as bad as October when they had the nightly checkpoint on the N7 at Kill.
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As observed by @Bandage at St Anneās Park, the token Garda enforcement of activity in public parks is comical. On my last run there was a single Garda perched on a bicycle throughout at the furthest point away from where there were large groups of youths whoād climbed the fence onto the pitches to play contact sport. This lad had no interest in intervening and was happy to punch the clock doing nothing. 
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They took the goals down in Mary I GAA pitch to stop the young lads playing ball
why arent those young lads at home in bed or watching netflix or the playstation on a sunny spring day? - maybe it would be better off if they were in a fellas garage drinking cans, at least theyā be out of sight
arent they aware that by playing football they may actually end up murdering people by transmitting a so called deadly virus?
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you just reminded me of a post on a neighbourhood watch page. Someone posted in to the admin and sent a picture of 2 lads hitting some golf balls at a school playing pitch. And how a child could walk on one of them and break their ankle. I suppose thats what the neighbourhood watch pages are for!
Iāve no problem with them playing football. Iām just amused by the arbitrary guard stationed in the park doing his utmost to pretend he couldnāt see it.
Iāve a work related jaunt to connemara coming up. Are there any covid related restrictions or can I just expect the usual hostility?