Ireland Rips Up Vaccine Passport After Half-a-Year of Restrictions on the Unvaxxed

DUBLIN, IRELAND - MARCH 27: The Irish tricolour flies over the GPO during the 1916 Easter
Charles McQuillan/Getty Images
Peter Caddle

Ireland has torn up its regime of vaccine passes after six months, putting an end to discrimination against the unvaccinated within the country.

After around six months of the system’s operation, Ireland will once again allow the unjabbed to access services such as indoor dining in restaurants and bars.

The passes were first introduced in the country in June of last year, blocking unvaccinated individuals who had not recently recovered from the Chinese Coronavirus from the likes of restaurants and cinemas, as well as from visiting nursing homes.

According to a report by the Irish Independent, the passes have now been scrapped for all domestic venues and activities, with the nation’s Taoiseach (Prime Minister), Micheál Martin, saying that the measures are no longer required.

“I think we’re into a new phase of the pandemic, which is the phase that the type of restrictions that we’ve imposed in the previous phases is no longer required,” the publication reported Martin as saying.

“Spring is coming and I don’t know if I’ve ever looked forward to one as much as I’m looking forward to this one,” the prime minister also noted.

Many in the country have been celebrating the news, with an image of a ripped up EU COVID cert posted by the director of the Iona Institute, David Quinn, receiving over a thousand likes on social media.

However, a number of politicians have since cautioned the public regarding the scrapping of measures, with Prime Minister Martin warning that there may be “further twists” in the pandemic.

This cautious sentiment was echoed by the nation’s Tánaiste (Deputy Prime Minister), Leo Varadkar.

“Immunity will wane – it always does. There will be more variants of concern and there will be another winter so you could envisage a scenario whereby we have a sixth, seventh, eight, ninth, tenth wave,” Varadkar said.

“I don’t know, we just can’t say at the moment how mild or severe that might be,” the deputy PM continued. “What we’re going to do over the next couple of weeks as a government is plan for that.”

Ireland’s abolition of its internal vaccine pass regime comes shortly after England announced last Wednesday that it would be substantially relaxing its COVID rules.

The nation has scrapped all mandatory mask-wearing, as well as the work from home order that had been implemented late last year.

“Having looked at the data carefully, the cabinet concluded that once regulations lapse the government will no longer mandate the wearing of face masks anywhere,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said regarding restrictions.

“… As covid becomes endemic, we will need to replace legal requirements with advice and guidance urging people with the virus to be careful and considerate of others,” he continued.

While Britain and Ireland have begun loosening their COVID measures, other nations in Europe however are only looking at further tightening restrictions.

Both France and Italy have committed to further measures revolving around their COVID passes, with France in particular set to roll out its new vaccine pass regime by January 24.

Like Ireland’s regime before it, under the new French rules, unjabbed and unrecovered individuals will soon not be able to bypass vaccine requirements with a negative COVID test, banning them from a wide variety of amenities in the country entirely as a result.

Germany meanwhile is threatening to implement mandatory vaccination for the entirety of its adult population, a measure that its neighbour, Austria, has already committed to, passing legislation forcing the jab earlier in the week.

Those who remain unvaccinated in the country are now facing the possibility of hefty fines of up to €3,000.

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