Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 14 July 2021

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport

Implementation of the EU Digital Covid Certificate: Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform

Photo of Ossian SmythOssian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I will start by describing the information that is on the certificate. Many members will have received theirs already and will see it just contains one's first and last name, one's date of birth and the dose of vaccine one has received and the dates on which they were received. There is not any information beyond that; that is the extent of the information.

My role in this, technically, was to be responsible for ensuring the certificates got issued, that is, that they got printed or electronically generated with barcodes. The intention was that they would be used for international travel. A new decision came out of Cabinet on Monday that we would use them for another purpose, namely, entry for indoor dining in restaurants and pubs. How that is going to work in practice is being worked out this week between the hospitality sector, Fáilte Ireland and the Ministers involved, which, I guess, are those with responsibility for tourism and enterprise. I do not think they have asked us for assistance with that. They are planning to use the certificates because they have been sent out, whether they are in electronic form on a phone or in paper form. At this stage, I do not know what they are going to do because I am not involved in that project. I guess it is a tourism and hospitality question and something the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Varadkar, or the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Deputy Catherine Martin, might be better placed to answer questions about.