A DONEGAL man traveling to Cork to see a man about a dog was turned and send home at a Covid-19 checkpoint in Limerick.
Yesterday afternoon, the man, who was accompanied by another person, was stopped at a checkpoint at the Limerick tunnel.
After explaining that he had been in Athlone to collect an agricultural mower, he offered to travel on to Cork pick up the dog for a friend.
RTÉ Drivetime reporter John Cooke was at the checkpoint talking to Gardaí and motorists.
“If we don’t go down now to get the dog, when do you get it?” the Donegal motorist said.
“You have to get the pup when it’s young. You can’t get it when it’s too old or it’s too late. It has to be trained. That’s the problem.”
Gardaí ordered the man to turn, informing him that his journey to Cork was not essential. An officer warned him that they were using automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) technology and would be detected should they attempt to head for Cork again during the lockdown.
“It says here that we’re half-an-hour away,” the frustrated driver said. “We wouldn’t even be in contact with the man. He would leave the dog out for us. Stuff like that is stupid, but what do you do? I’m not the law.”
Click here to listen to RTÉ Drivetime’s feature from the checkpoint
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