An Irish man in New Zealand is fighting for an apology after the government's strict Covid rules meant he had to watch his mother die over video call.
Paul Mullally, who is originally from Kilkenny but is a citizen in New Zealand, was prevented from being able to fly home to Ireland to see his dying mother, Angela, when she passed away from breast cancer earlier this year.
Instead of being there with his family in person, Paul said he ended up having to video call his mother on her death bed to tell her he loved her before she passed away at 4.22am on January 30.
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"I sat in my garage at four in the morning trying not to wake my daughter while I watched my mother pass away. It's not the nicest thing to have to do," he told the TVNZ's Breakfast show on Thursday.
Paul now wants the New Zealand government to apologise as it was the country’s managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) system that prevented him from boarding a plane back to Ireland.
Covid rules enforced between April 2020 until February 2022 required citizens to secure a place in hotel isolation for their return to New Zealand before they left the country.
His mother Angela was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer last year and given four or five years to live but she "started to go downhill rapidly" by December.
By mid-January the family realised how bad Angela's condition was and Paul applied for an emergency MIQ spot so his family, including his wife Jo and their one-year-old daughter Kayla, could go back to Ireland to see her before she died.
However, despite ringing and emailing MIQ every day his application wasn't processed in time, making it impossible for him to return home.
Speaking on the show, Paul said: "We heard nothing back. Absolutely nothing, we got an email. We rang everybody, we rang politicians.
"Every time we rang the helpline, one of the first things they said… the people you're talking to cannot give you an answer."
The day after his mother passed away, Paul and his family were finally granted a MIQ spot.
Paul said he now wants the New Zealand government to apologise to him and other citizens who were similarly affected before it is "too late".
He said he wants them to acknowledge the hurt the MIQ allocation system caused by not planning ahead for emergency situations like his.
"They need to acknowledge that, yes, Covid and all the restrictions were needed at the time," he said. "But, this Government, to me, seems to react to things. They don't plan ahead."
Just last week a lobby group named Grounded Kiwis won a High Court challenge against the New Zealand government’s MIQ system.
In her 140-page-decision, Justice Jill Mallon criticised the MIQ's virtual "lottery" system for its failure to take into account citizens' personal circumstances saying it "did not sufficiently allow individual circumstances to be considered and prioritised".
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