Contact tracers to get access to passenger locator forms for Christmas travel rush

It is an offence, punishable by a fine of up to €2,500, either to fail to fill in a contact tracing form or to fill it out with misleading information. File picture: Brian Lawless

Contact tracers tracking flights into Ireland are to be given access to passenger locator forms for the first time ahead of the Christmas travel rush.

Several sources in contact tracing centres have suggested that the current system of checking passengers, via flight manifests provided by the airlines, is wholly inadequate for the purpose of tracking infections.

This is due to the unreliable nature of the airline data, which frequently comprises inaccurate or even non-existent contact numbers, which in turn leads to either heightened delays in contacting people who have been in close contact with a confirmed case of Covid-19 or attempts to track unavailable passengers being abandoned entirely.

As of November 29, Ireland moved to the EU’s traffic light system, meaning that many incoming passengers are not required to self-isolate at all. Contact tracers said that issue, coupled with the inadequate information available from the airlines, a spike in the number of cases, and the marked increase in traffic due to Christmas could have been enough to overwhelm the tracing system.

“A lot of people are being missed and may never be informed about the cases on their flight,” said one source. “Having access to accurate phone numbers is the main thing.”

It is understood that the data contained on the forms will be made available to staff in the tracing centres in the coming days, though how that data will be accessed is as yet unknown.

Passenger locator forms were first brought into use by the State in March as a means of ensuring that inbound passengers were self-isolating. The data contained on the forms is comprehensive, comprising name, address of stay, contact number, email, age, flight number, country of departure, length of stay, and departure date.

Crucially, passenger locator forms are filled out by passengers themselves, either in advance of travel or on the flight or ferry, leading to consistency in the data.

It is an offence, punishable by a fine of up to €2,500, either to fail to fill in a form or to fill it out with misleading information.

Nevertheless, the forms have never previously been made available to tracers recruited to work in the country’s four large contact tracing centres in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, and Galway.