Happy St Patrick's Day
News
17 March 2020Dear Friends
As the sun sets on St Patrick’s Day in Hong Kong for 2020, I’m conscious that recent weeks has been a stressful time for many of us. Ordinarily this week in the year is the high point of being Irish in Hong Kong and Macao. However, the continued outbreak of Covid-19 has disrupted plans of the Consulate and the Irish organisations and in order to comply with local health regulations, the usual St Patrick’s programme of events (National Day Reception, St Patrick’s Ball, Irish Trophy at Happy Valley, “The Irish Village” at Tamar, amongst others) at are not being hosted this year.
The Consulate, in close cooperation with our colleagues in Beijing, continue to work to provide support to Irish people at this time. We are working with our colleagues in Dublin, the local authorities and local diplomatic colleagues to deal with a rapidly evolving situation. We are monitoring the COVID-19 outbreak and the resulting travel restrictions which affect our citizens closely. Our travel advice is being monitored on a daily basis, and updated as appropriate. It can be found here.
We are continuing to assess the implications of the latest decision by the Governments of Ireland, Hong Kong and Macao in relation to travel restrictions, notably:
- On the advice of the National Public Health Emergency Team the Government of Ireland is advising against all non-essential travel overseas at least until March 29. It also includes all cruise ship travel, details available here.
- Hong Kong is advising against non-essential travel to Ireland (details here) as well as many other locationswith reports coming that this is likely to be extended to all jurisdictions except mainland China, Macao and Taiwan
- Hong Kong is further extending its medical surveillance and quarantine arrangements in Hong Kong with effect from 19 March. While many cases – especially residents – will involve supervised home quarantine (with the risk of criminal prosecution for failure to comply with the regulations), some (notably non-residents or close contacts of confirmed cases) may have to serve quarantine arrangements at designated quarantine centres. details can be found here and here.
- Effective from 17 March 2020, individuals who have been to countries or regions excluding Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan within the past 14 days before entering into Macao, must undergo medical observation at a designated place for 14 days, details here
In an effort to provide continuity of service in a worse case situation, the Consulate is operating a strict 50% home working policy on a rotation basis to mitigate the various risks associated around contagion and mandatory quarantine. Within that framework, we continue to offer an appointments-based service weekdays in the hours 10:00 to 12:00. If you need to get in touch with us, you can do so via this email address HongKong@dfa.ie. Do bear with us if there is a short delay in finding you a convenient appointment!
If you know of any members of the Irish Community, who are not registered with the Embassy, please ask them to contact us here
While there are no formal celebrations for St Patrick’s Day, I am delighted to say that we had solitary greening events in Hong Kong and Macao for 2020. The Ruins of St Pauls, courtesy of the Macao Government, have been lit up in green since Saturday night until this evening. Similarly, the Hong Kong Government have kindly facilitated access for us to illuminate the Clock Tower in TST green this evening. Having these iconic structure lit in Green on St Patrick’s Day serves to remind us of the strong bilateral friendships between our regions and strong solidarity needed between territories and nations at this difficult time. I am grateful to both Governments for their commitment in making this happen and I am reminded of the Irish proverb “Ní neart go cur le chéile” (roughly translated as “There is no strength without unity”)
Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig / Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
Best wishes,
David Costello