Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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644. To ask the Minister for Health the amount paid, per year to a company (details supplied) by the HSE and his Department; the details of the cases being handled by year by the company; the cases still to be resolved by the company; and a timeline for when these cases are expected to be resolved. [11417/23]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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As this is a service matter, I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond to the Deputy directly as soon as possible concerning the details sought. My Department has not utilised the company.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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645. To ask the Minister for Health the amount spent by the HSE and his Department per month on the Covid tracker app in each of the past three years, in tabular form. [11418/23]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The cost of the Covid Tracker app was approximately €800k with ongoing support and development costs of approximately €20k per month during the subsequent 6 months. If a breakdown in tabular form is required the department will need to refer this PQ to the HSE for that detail.

The cost of the Irish tracker app compares with an estimated cost of €20m for the German Covid tracker app, as reported by the media at the time.

Covid tracker apps are significantly more complex than a typical app, as it relies on using advanced engineering and bluetooth technology to estimate distances from others with mobile phones.

The Irish app was also used as part of the communications strategy to keep people informed about the spread of the disease, the number of positive cases and deaths recorded (by area) and the number of vaccinations administered. The app was subsequently upgraded to act as a digital wallet for people to store their digital Covid certificate on their phone.

The Irish Covid app was extremely popular with the public - with over 1 million downloads in the first 36 hours after launch. In latter times it was more popular as a convenient way of storing the digital Covid certificates. In line with the data privacy impact assessment, the app will be decommissioned when no longer required. As the EU regulatory requirement for member states to issue EU digital Covid certificates is scheduled to lapse this summer, its likely the app will be decommissioned at that time also.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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646. To ask the Minister for Health the amount spent by the HSE and his Department per month on the implementation and practical costs of the Covid vaccine passport both for foreign travel and for public houses and restaurants in each of the past three years, in tabular form. [11419/23]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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Ireland was legally obliged under an EU regulation to provide EU Digital Covid Certificates (DCCs) to everyone who received a Covid vaccination in Ireland. Furthermore, Irish citizens who received an EU recognised vaccine in another country, where suitable evidence could be provided, were also entitled to a DCC.

The EU Digital Covid Certificate (aka Covid Passport) was implemented using a data feed from the national Covid vaccination system (COVAX), developed and operated by the HSE. The modifications required to Covax were minimal and hence development costs were minor and not tracked separately.

The department did incur costs associated with Covid passports that were issued by post and where they were 'returned to sender'. These costs are identified in the table below (the sender was identified as the department of health even though paper based certs were posted out by Revenue who offered the department support with printing and posting of certs because they were set up operationally to do that work during the pandemic).

Existing infrastructure was used to email Covid passports to the majority of those who received a vaccination, hence no additional cost was incurred for emailed passports. Paper certificates/passports were issued by post where an email address was not provided or where an individual expressed a preference to receive their certificate by post. To support the department, Revenue printed all paper certificates and covered the cost of all postage.

The department also stood up a helpline and on line portal to allow people to update their details, request a re-issue of certs and deal with other queries associated with Covid certificates (passports).