Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
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219. To ask the Minister for Health the number of persons who arrived here in each week from 12 April 2021 to date who had been in a designated state in the previous 14 days; the number from each designated state in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23497/21]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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All passengers arriving into the state are required to complete a COVID-19 Passenger Locator Form (PLF) in accordance with SI 45/2021. There are limited exemptions from this requirement, as set out in the regulations, such as for international transport workers or for diplomats. The Passenger Locator Form is used to support a system of engagements with arriving passengers including the targeting of public health messaging by SMS and may be used for contact tracing.

It should be noted that PLF data does not constitute formal arrival data into the state, due to the different intended purpose for the system and also the number of exempted persons as set out above. In addition, some passengers may complete a PLF in advance but be unable to travel as intended, and the data below may include some duplicates for certain travellers. Passengers may have completed a PLF and continued their journey without staying overnight in the state or having transiting onto Northern Ireland.

The data below is an indicative number of passengers whose journey originated in a designated state as well as those passengers that listed a designated state in their recent travel history from 12 April to 23 April. This is the most recent date with validated data.

There are currently 71 states designated by the Minister as listed at . For the period in question there were 55 designated states up to 14 April, and 71 designated states to 23rd April.

22,665 Passenger Locator Forms were completed during this period from all countries of departure for relevant travellers. 7.5% of the Passenger Locator Forms indicated a designated state.

The data provided below is where a minimum number of 10 arrived from a designated state, as providing any smaller numbers could risk identifying individual passengers. Where a passenger has declared that they have travelled in a number of designated states prior to arriving into Ireland, the most recent state is reported.

The data in the table below includes the number of accompanying children under 16 declared on the PLF. No further information is recorded on passengers under 16 years of age.

The figures below are subject to change due to ongoing data cleansing e.g. duplication where passengers completed the PLF twice.

*refers to countries in the table where passenger numbers are less than 10. This data is included in Other and includes the following for the relevant weeks:

Andorra, Angola, Argentina, Armenia, Aruba, Bahrain, Bangladesh (People's Republic of), Bermuda, the islands of Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba, Bolivia (Plurinational State of), Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Burundi, Cabo Verde, Chile, Colombia, Curaçao, DR Congo, Ecuador, Eswatini, Ethiopia, French Guiana, Guyana, Jordan, Kenya, Kosovo, Kuwait, Lesotho, Luxembourg, Malawi, Maldives (Republic of), Monaco, Montenegro, Mozambique, Namibia, North Macedonia, Oman, Palestine, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Rwanda, San Marino, Serbia, Seychelles, Somalia, Suriname, Tanzania, Uruguay, Venezuela, Zambia and the Territory of the Wallis and Futuna Islands.

**Note- designated states included in the table above with the operative date 15th April:

Designated states from 15th April

Armenia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bermuda, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Canada, Curaçao, France, Italy, Kenya, Luxembourg, Maldives, Pakistan, Turkey, United States of America and Ukraine.

For reference, the following revocations and designations have been made since the dates for the above table:

Designated status revoked from 30th April

Bonaire Sint Eustatius & Saba, Monaco, Moldova, San Marino, Wallis and Futuna Islands

Designated states from 4th May

Costa Rica, Georgia, India, Iran and Mongolia