A man who provided Boyzone singer Keith Duffy with forged Covid-19 PCR certificates to allow the singer to travel to the UK to perform in 2021 is to be assessed for community service.
Jamie Fernandez Corrigan (33) “cheated the system” and allowed friends and family to do the same by providing them with forged Covid-19 test certificates enabling them to travel around Europe to festivals, concerts and sporting events during the lockdown in the summer of 2021.
Det Joe Gavin of An Garda Síochána said that when Corrigan was interviewed in late December 2021 about the forgeries, his solicitor called afterwards to alert them to the fact that Corrigan had tested positive for Covid.
The gardaí sought confirmation of the positive test but they never received it. Both Gavin and his colleague, who had young children at the time, had to isolate from their families over Christmas.
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Corrigan of Cullenswood House, Northbrook Avenue, Ranelagh, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to having in his possession a false instrument, a Covid-19 PCR certificate, on dates between May 2021 and July 2021. There were 22 forged certificates in total.
Gavin told Kieran Kelly, prosecuting, that Corrigan was stopped by immigration control on July 11th, 2021, in Terminal one of Dublin Airport.
Under the restrictions at the time, Corrigan was expected to quarantine if he did not provide a PCR test but he supplied a Spanish PCR certificate.
He provided officers with two certificates and later accepted that the certificates were faked, one for his flight out and the other for his return.
The gardaí were alerted and Gavin said when Corrigan showed him the certificate on his phone, the detective noted that it appeared that he had sent similar certificates to friends via messaging.
Further examination of his phone showed that he had forwarded similar forged certificates to up to 10 other people.
Gavin said there were 22 separate certificates, either used by Corrigan himself or sent to these people between May and July 2021. He said Corrigan had basically created and distributed these certificates to allow family and friends to travel during this time.
He said one of these people was Boyzone and Boyzlife singer Keith Duffy. His son Jordan Duffy also received a certificate.
Gavin agreed with Justin McQuade, defending, that Corrigan was “cheating the system while the rest of us were in lockdown and had to suffer the inconvenience of having to go for testing” before international travel.
Gavin said Keith Duffy benefited from the forged certificates to allow him to travel to the UK in July 2021 to perform at a concert there.
He agreed that while files were sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions in relation to eight of the people who received the forged certificates, Corrigan is the only one who has been prosecuted.
Gavin accepted that Corrigan never financially benefited from the scheme but said others had benefited by being able to travel and perform at concerts.
“He was certainly offering his services to people,” Gavin said while accepting a suggestion from McQuade that Corrigan was acting out of “a false sense of loyalty or misjudgment”.
McQuade said his client got married in 2025 and was from an excellent background. He said he had a very pro-social family and was well educated, with a degree in commerce from UCD.
He had a good work history and had been working with the same recruitment company from 2021, which recruits medical professionals to work in healthcare. He is currently living and working remotely from Barcelona.
Judge Orla Crowe said she would ask the Probation Service to assess him for 240 hours community service despite him now living in Barcelona. She adjourned the case until February next.
