Posting 'digital' Covid Certificates to cost €800,000
The Revenue Commissioners has agreed to print and post roughly 935,000 paper versions of the State’s Covid Certificate to fully vaccinated people.
The Government is to spend just under €800,000 on posting physical versions of the State’s Covid Certificate to fully vaccinated people across the country.
The Revenue Commissioners has agreed to print and post roughly 935,000 paper versions of the certificate, the country’s solution to the issue of who is to be allowed dine indoors and travel abroad from Monday, July 19.
The digital version of the certificate began issuing to people who have been fully vaccinated from last Monday, July 12.
Given the haste with which the format of the Covid Certificate was agreed upon, there had been a deal of confusion as to what company or State body would be responsible for it.
That haste had resulted from the extremely downbeat advice delivered to the Government by the National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) on June 29, which had suggested that the reopening of indoor hospitality be delayed in the face of the rampant Covid-19 Delta variant.
Revenue said it had agreed to print the certificates for individuals “for the reason that a certificate can not be issued electronically”, such as those for whom no email address is on file, at a cost of €0.85 per cert — €794,750 in total.
It said the endeavour was being carried out on behalf of the HSE and with the cooperation of the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer (OGCIO), an offshoot of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.
Some 335,000 certificates had been processed as of July 14, the Revenue said.
It said that such printing facilities form part of the “range of shared services” it provides on behalf of government departments. Revenue said it would continue to post those paper certificates “for as long as our services are needed”.
Meanwhile, the Digital Covid Certificate call centre, set up to deal with queries from members of the public who have yet to receive a cert, is set to be in place for at least six months.
The Department of Health confirmed that the call centre, which had been set up “at exceptional pace” and has been operational since July 13, is set to ramp up its capacity from Monday.
While the call centre has been staffed initially by “call-agents provided by other civil services”, a “procurement process is being finalised to secure initial capacity for the next six months”.
The Department had not confirmed whether or not a private enterprise would be handling that contract at the time of publication.
It urged only those with urgent queries, regarding imminent travel in July for example, to contact the call centre in the coming days given the low capacity currently available.
The helpline has had between 25 and 30 call agents in place until now, who had been receiving an average of 4,000 calls a day. That figure is due to rise to between 60 and 90 agents from July 19, when international travel returns.
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