Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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250. To ask the Minister for Health the total costs associated with the Covid vaccine passports in the past five years. [41846/24]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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This PQ has been referred to the HSE for response.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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251. To ask the Minister for Health the total cost incurred in relation to the set-up and maintenance of the Covid tracker app in each of the past five years. [41847/24]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The cost of the Covid Tracker app was approximately €800,000 with ongoing support and development costs thereafter of approximately €20k per month, hosting costs of approximately €20k per month plus costs associated with monitoring the security of the app and app environment of approximately €13k per quarter.

This compared favourably with international experience with, for example, an estimated cost of €20m for the German Covid tracker app, as reported by the media at the time.

Ireland received €1.15m in funding from the EU to support digital responses to the pandemic, including the tracker app and digital Covid certificates.

Covid tracker apps are significantly complex using advanced engineering and Bluetooth technology to estimate distances from others with mobile phones. As well as the app keeping 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 also subsequently upgraded to act as a digital wallet to store digital Covid certificates on their phone.

No further costs have been incurred since the app was decommissioned in 2023.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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252. To ask the Minister for Health the number of cases taken against the State regarding the deaths of individuals from Covid-19 in hospitals or nursing homes. [41848/24]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The State Claims Agency (SCA) has a statutory remit to manage personal injury claims on behalf of State Authorities including the Health Service Executive.

The SCA has informed me that it has received 73 wrongful death claims, in respect of COVID-19, recorded across hospitals, nursing homes, HSE locations including community healthcare locations, COVID-19 vaccine programme locations and HIQA.

The SCA has informed me that this information was extracted from the National Incident Management System (NIMS) and is correct as at the 11/10/2024.

Definitions:

National Incident Management System (NIMS): National Incident Management System (NIMS): Incidents (which include claims) are reported using the “National Incident Management System”, hosted by the State Claims Agency (SCA). An incident can be a harmful Incident (Adverse Event), no harm incident, near miss, dangerous occurrence (reportable circumstance) or complaint. NIMS is the system used by the delegated authorities to fulfil their statutory requirement to report incidents to the State Claims Agency and for their own incident and risk management purposes.

Claim: A claim refers to notification of intention to seek compensation for personal injury and/or property damage where it is alleged the State was negligent. The application may be in the form of a letter of claim, an InjuriesBoard.ie application, or a written/oral request.