A clear majority of the Irish public want gardai to have the power to shut down house parties in breach of the Covid-19 guidelines, according to an Irish Mail On Sunday/Ireland Thinks poll.
Gardai have no powers to shut down a house party on the basis of it breaking the coronavirus rules, however, they can break up a gathering if it becomes ‘anti-social’, a Garda source said.
Of the 1,200 people surveyed, 70% said they want to see new laws passed to allow gardai to shut down gatherings breaking the Covid-19 rules.
One quarter of those interviewed replied they should not be given extra powers, while 5% said they didn’t know.
There is growing concern over house parties spreading the deadly disease after videos of young people breaking the rules emerged online.
These videos included a party of over 100 students crammed into a semi-detached house in Sligo, a Wexford GAA club celebrating a win in a marquee and a brunch held in Dublin’s Berlin Bar during which a member of staff was seen pouring alcohol into punters’ mouths.
The Government has indicated that it wants to introduce new Garda powers to shut down parties that are in clear breach of the Covid-19 rules.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin said in early August: ‘We do need immediate sanctions where there’s a clear breach of the public health measures because that clearly has a ripple effect across the wider community.’
However, later in the month, Justice Minister Helen McEntee backtracked on Mr Martin’s initial call for more laws backing Garda enforcement of the coronavirus guidelines saying that it would be an ‘extreme measure’.
Ms McEntee said at the time: ‘We looked at a number of options over the last week and a half and what we’ve decided today… is that a statutory instrument would be implemented, around the number of people which can gather in a home, it wouldn’t be a penal provision.
‘I think we have to look at how far do we go here, particularly when we’re talking about somebody’s home. It was found that this would be perhaps an extreme measure, particularly around entering somebody’s home,’ she said.
‘We really want to work with people here and we’ve seen throughout all of this that people have complied in the vast majority of instances… So this is why we agreed and came to the decision that we did today,’ said Ms McEntee.
A Garda source told the MoS they didn’t think there were any public health laws that officers can use to intervene in a house party but there are public order laws that can be enacted if there is a mass public order incident.
The source said: ‘I don’t think there’s any official powers to go in and shut down house parties under health rules. There is the usual public order stuff. They didn’t grant or go with any particular house-check kind of clause.
‘I don’t think they went down the route of a Covid-related house party law.
‘There are public order laws in place, if there is a mass public order incident or if there is a gathering that has become antisocial, gardaí can intervene.’
Poll details
The sample size for the poll is 1,200. Using innovative technology the poll uses random sampling from a faceto-face poll together with the benefits of speed and privacy of SMS polling. It was conducted between 9am and 1pm on Saturday, September 26.
The method is in line with Pew Research Center and the American Association for Public Opinion Research’s evaluations of the most accurate methodologies for conducting public opinion polling. The representative sample is collated using Random Digit Dialling and propensity score matching.
From 34,000 panellists 3,921 were chosen to take part. Matching demographics and attitudes of the exit poll, the figures are weighted to age, gender, region, education and vote at the 2020 general election. The poll has a response rate of one in three and a 98% completion rate.
The methodology is led by Dr Kevin Cunningham. Kevin holds two degrees in statistics from Oxford University and Trinity College Dublin and lectured in statistics at Technological University Dublin. The methodology exceeds the standards of AIMRO, ESOMAR and the British Polling Council.
