Lack of patient ID database could hit Covid passport bid
THE lack of a national patient ID database or a digital record system threatens to delay plans to get Irish holidaymakers back in the air.
Sources involved with creating Covid passports for Irish sunseekers and travellers told the Irish Mail on Sunday it will be ‘a challenge’ to meet the June deadline set by the EU.
Unlike most EU member states, medical records here are not centrally stored and this weekend the Department of Health admitted its officials are still trying to figure out how it will collect and collate information needed to issue a Covid passport.
The EU is determined that by next month member states will start issuing Covid passports.
And next Tuesday MEPs, senior European Commission officials, as well as representatives from all the member states will meet to discuss how plans are progressing in each country.
As well as showing the person’s name and date of birth, the passport must also state that the card holder has been vaccinated, has had a negative PCR test before travelling and whether they are recovering after contracting Covid.
But gathering this information is more complex because Ireland does not have a national patient ID database or a centralised digital record system.
A Government source told the MoS: ‘The vaccine certificate is not that hard to do, that’s readily available, but then you have the PCR tests which are on the HSE system but the testing before travelling is a different issue.
‘There are challenges, there’s no doubt about that, but there’s a lot of work going on and the State has to do it because this is going to be legal.’ But when the MoS asked the Department of Health this weekend when the first Covid passports would be issued here, officials declined to provide an answer.
A spokesperson for Health Minister Stephen Donnelly also refused to give any details about how the information needed to issue these passes would be gathered.
They would only say: ‘The Government is keen to ensure that every effort should be made to achieve alignment across the EU in preparing for reopening of international travel for non-essential purposes as soon as it is safe to do so. An interdepartmental group of senior officials from relevant departments have been progressing policy work in respect of the proposed EU Digital Green Certificate and vaccination certificate. Negotiations are ongoing at EU level in relation to the regulations to support the Digital Green Certificate.
‘The operational aspects include the processing of personal data necessary to issue Digital Green Certificates and to process the information necessary to confirm and verify the authenticity and validity of such certificates. These aspects are being developed on a crossdepartmental level.’
Anyone keen to travel in
Europe during the summer for a holiday will need a Covid passport. Each pass will have a unique identification number similar to the black and white square on a boarding pass for a plane journey. On arrival at a border crossing the card will then be scanned and crossreferenced against an EU database to ensure it is not bogus.
A spokesman for the European Commission told the MoS: ‘It is clear that both the European Parliament and the Council are fully committed to making the Digital Green Certificate a reality before the summer.
‘The Commission will continue to drive this process and is confident that with the co-operation of all, the Digital Green Certificate will be
available on time.’