Health Department spending 'thousands' on Covid Passports

The Department of Health is still spending “hundreds of thousands” of pounds on the Covid Passport app, which has not been required for more than a year.

The Covid Vaccination Passport was made mandatory by the then Executive for only 45 days between December 2020 and

January 2021. Speaking to Derry News, Derry City and Strabane District councillor, Emmet Doyle (Aontú) said the App cost more than £20m and is still costing taxpayers a “significant amount of money”.

Cllr Doyle said it was outrageous the Department of Health was still spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on a Covid Passport app when it had not been required for over a year.

He added: ““This scheme cost £20.5m up to December 2022 and in each month of the financial year 2022/23, the Department has spent a further £440k on it. This spending is wasteful whilst our frontline health services are under intense and sustained pressure.

“In December of last year, I was contacted by a number of constituents who had received a notification from their dormant Covid-19 app informing them a renewed certificate has been downloaded for them. Many expressed surprise this scheme was still running, given the Executive scrapped it as a requirement over a year ago.

“I contacted the Department of Health to seek an explanation. I was shocked to learn that the Covid Passport (officially named the Covid Certification Scheme) was not only still running, but was costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of pounds to administer.

“At a time when GP surgeries are handing back their contracts and when Emergency Departments are under constant pressure, the Department has no reason to be spending money on a provision that lasted only 45 days and is not required when travelling in most parts of the world today – and not in the EU at all,” said Cllr Doyle.

Cllr Doyle said domestic passports, championed by the SDLP, were such a failure that they were not even legally required for a whole two months, having failed to contain the virus in the South and in many other jurisdictions.

He added: “Aontú was the only party on the island to absolutely oppose these measures as their introduction in the south had proved a failure and they were proof only of vaccination status, not a current Covid status.

"Serious questions now need to be asked about this spending."