Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 24 March 2021
1502. Deputy Darren O'Rourke asked the Minister for Health the number of arrivals from each category 2 state as listed under regulation 6 of the Health Act 1947 in February and to date in March 2021; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14450/21]
View answerAll passengers arriving to the State are required to complete a COVID-19 Passenger Locator Form (PLF) in accordance with SI 45/2021. There are limited exemptions from this requirement, as set out in the regulations, such as for international transport workers or for diplomats. The Passenger Locator Form is used to support a system of engagements with arriving passengers including the targeting of public health messaging by SMS and may be used for contact tracing.
It should be noted that PLF data does not constitute formal arrival data into the country, due to the different intended purpose for the system and also the number of exempted persons as set out above. In addition, some passengers may complete a PLF in advance but be unable to travel as intended, and the data below may include some duplicates for certain travellers. Passengers may have completed a PLF and continued their journey without staying overnight in the State or having transiting onto Northern Ireland.
The data below is an indicative number of passengers whose journey originated in a Category 2 state as well as those passengers that listed a Category 2 state in their recent travel history from 8th February to 14 March. A total of 33 states are designated by the Minister.
Numbers provided are for countries where a minimum number of 10 arrived from a Category 2 country, as providing any smaller numbers could risk identifying individual passengers. Where a passenger has declared that they have travelled in a number of Category 2 countries prior to arriving into Ireland, the most recent country is reported. Passengers will only appear once on this report.
63,987 Passenger Locator Forms were completed 8th Feb – 14th March from all countries of departure for relevant travellers.
8% of the Passenger Locator Forms indicated a category 2 country during this period.
Number of accompanying children U16 are declared on the PLF, further information is not recorded on these passengers.
The figures below are subject to change due to ongoing data cleansing e.g. duplication where passengers completed the ePLF twice.
*Other countries -
Angola, Botswana, Bolivia, Burundi, Cape Verde, Colombia, Chile, DR Congo, Ecuador, Eswatini, French Guiana, Guyana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Rwanda, Suriname, Seychelles, Tanzania, Uruguay, Venezuela, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
