Owner of NPHET.ie claims theft as site removed for pointing to false Covid-19 information

A search for Nphet.ie took the user to the Fianna Fáil website.

A Fianna Fáil supporter who purchased the NPHET.ie domain and directed it to the party’s website and to an anti-vaccination site, says he is a victim of theft because it was removed.

Damian McMenamin purchased the domain names www.niac.ie and www.nphet.ie, and set them up to direct users to Fianna Fáil’s website as well as another site titled: ‘No Jab For Me’.

Fianna Fáil told the Irish Examiner at the time that the party had no knowledge of the websites or who owned them.

The domains were then removed “without any reason or consultation”, according to Mr McMenamin, in emails seen by the Irish Examiner.

“This all started when I redirected to Fianna Fáil, whom I support, and an article in Irish Examiner misled the public to believe it was a ploy for people to sign up to Fianna Fáil which was ridiculous,” he wrote, adding “it’s just coincidence I picked these domain names.”

A government spokesperson confirmed that the Department of Health contacted the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO), with their concerns about two sites NIAC.ie and NPHET.ie that were directing people to a site — No Jab for Me — that directly contradicted the advice coming from both NIAC and NPHET.

OGCIO flagged the issue to Hosting Ireland, which suspended access to the two sites. Hosting Ireland also recommended that the domain name registrations could be challenged through the dispute resolution policy (ADRP) via domain registry weare.ie. The policy is operated by an independent third party, Net Neutrals EU.

An email to Mr McMenamin from the weare.ie website registration team stated: “We have received an email from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, they work with the Department of Health in supplying the public with accurate and safe information during the COVID-19 pandemic. It has been brought to our attention that the domain nphet.ie and niac.ie are pointing to sites with potentially harmful and misleading public health information.” Weare.ie said Mr McMenamin’s use of the sites was in contravention of their terms and conditions.

Mr McMenamin then called on Minister of State Ossian Smith to get involved, in an email stating: “I have been informed by registrar without consultation of domain removal, which amounts to theft [by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and/or the Department of Health, which instigated the action] as I paid for this." Mr McMenamin says he removed the redirects for niac.ie and nphet.ie from hostingireland.ie and requested the suspension be lifted.

Mr McMenamin insists there was nothing “misleading or harmful, just opinions from reporters and medics... simply redirecting to other sites that do not have information available in Irish newspapers.” However, in one email he goes on to paste a link to a video of UCD Professor Dolores Cahill who has risen to prominence spreading false information about Covid19.

This article was edited to clarify the role of the IE domain registry weare.ie in the process above.