More than 99,600 Covid-19 passenger locator forms submitted in November

More than 99,600 Covid-19 passenger locator forms were submitted for passengers arriving into the State in November, according to the Department of Health.

The forms are used for contact tracing purposes and for the targeting of public health messaging through texts. It is an offence, punishable by a fine of up to €2,500, not to complete a form unless the traveller is an essential supply chain worker, air crew, accredited diplomat or is transiting directly to Northern Ireland.

Of those travellers with whom follow-up contacts were made, four in five (79 per cent) verified their address. Within two weeks of arrival into the State, travellers receive a text message requesting they verify their place of address as submitted on their form. During November more than 30,000 arriving passengers verified their address through SMS and a further 11,054 confirmed their residence through follow-up phone calls.

Since passenger locator forms were introduced at the end of May, 11 people have refused to complete them. A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said anyone who failed or refused to comply with the requirement was referred to An Garda Síochána for “engagement and any necessary enforcement”.

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‘Traffic light’ system

Ireland has adopted the European’s “traffic light” system for international travel, with people from orange regions required to restrict their movement for 14 days unless they have a negative result from a Covid-19 PCR test taken no more than three days prior to departure. Passengers coming in from red regions can move freely once they have a negative PCR test taken at least five days after arriving in the State. Ireland is currently an orange region, while Greenland and parts of Norway are the only European regions coloured green.

There is currently a 48-hour travel ban for flights from Britain, due to the emergence of a new and more infectious variant of coronavirus.

Dublin Airport had expected some 60,960 passengers to arrive into the airport from Monday, December 21st, to January 4th. However, this figure is likely to fall significantly if the travel ban for British flights is extended past its current expiry date.

People living in London, the southeast or east of England have been put under Tier 4 restrictions for the Christmas period, which require people to stay at home unless they have a reasonable excuse. While a spokesman for Dublin Airport Authority would not say what proportion of Christmas passengers had been expected to travel from Britain, 28 per cent of people passing through Dublin Airport in November were travelling to or from Britain.

Meanwhile, the 4,500 passengers who were expected to travel to and from Ireland West Airport, Knock this Christmas were all British-Irish flights. The Mayo airport had just three routes in operation – London Stansted, London Luton, and Liverpool – when the 48-hour ban was announced.