Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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370. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the level of discussions his officials have had with their European counterparts regarding intercountry travel following vaccine roll-out, for example, the percentage of the population that would need to be vaccinated before returning to regular travel practices. [10425/21]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I regularly discuss the EU response to the COVID-19 pandemic and related issues such as travel restrictions in my meetings and contacts with my EU counterparts as does my colleague, the Minister of State for European Affairs, Thomas Byrne, T.D. These issues have been discussed in a series of virtual meetings which I have had with EU and European counterparts recently while they also arose at the virtual meeting of the General Affairs Council which Minister Byrne attended on 23 February.

Discussions regarding a coordinated approach to travel within the EU took place within the General Affairs Council last autumn culminating in the adoption of Council Recommendation 2020/1475 establishing the EU traffic light system for travel in October 2020. The Council Recommendation was further updated earlier this year in order to allow greater discretion to Member States to impose tougher restrictions, if warranted by the epidemiological situation in their country. A number of Member States including Ireland have in recent weeks temporarily departed from the traffic light system for travel in response to the emergence of new variants of the COVID-19 virus. It is hoped that once the epidemiological situation improves both in Ireland and across the EU that the traffic light system for travel can once again be fully implemented by the majority of Member States in order to facilitate freedom of movement and travel within the EU and across the continent generally.

Over the last number of months, a number of Member States have also raised the issue of ‘vaccine certificates’ and suggested they could be used, amongst other things, to facilitate greater ease of travel in the EU once restrictions are lifted in Member States. The EU has since published guidelines in relation to covid vaccination certificates but these guidelines limit their proposed use to medical use only, rather than for travel.

It is important to differentiate vaccine certificates, which are used to identify and monitor those who have been vaccinated, and an immunity passport which may allow an exemption from public health measures on the basis that the person has purported immunity to COVID-19. The WHO has cautioned Governments against introducing immunity passports at this time and has advised that the focus should remain on vaccine certificates as a medical record.

With regard to the use of digital vaccination certificates for travel – or vaccine passports, whilst various technical solutions are being considered in case they are required, no policy position has yet been developed to determine whether they will be used or for what purposes.