Several people with Irish language names have received their digital Covid travel certs with discrepancies with spelling and without the síneadh fada..
Julian de Spáinn, Director of the Irish language organisation Conradh na Gaeilge, shared a photo on Twitter showing his name incorrectly spelt as “Julian de SpÃinn” on EU Digital Covid cert.
He captioned the snap: “Cé hé an 'de SpÃinn' seo atá tar éis Teastas Digiteach COVID an AE a fháil ar maidin @roinnslainte?”
This translates as: “Who is this 'de SpÃinn' mentioned in this EU Digital COVID certificate?”
Julian added further: “I’d imagine not accepted at any airport/airline.”
"We checked with the Department of Health before work began on the certificates to ensure people with Irish names would have them spelled correctly," Mr de Spáinn said.
Fianna Fail Senator Lorraine Clifford-Lee tweeted: “This is completely unacceptable. People who use a fada in their name will not be able to use this with confidence travelling abroad. I am calling on @DonnellyStephen @paulreiddublin @ThomasByrneTD @HSELive to ensure that all vaccine certs with this error are reissued immediately.”
She further added: “It is also the height of disrespect to the language and the people of Ireland in the context of a lack of emergency notifications and restrictions in irish throughout the pandemic #ceartateanga.”
Senator Lorraine Clifford-Lee explained that several people had reached out to her regarding a similar issue.
She continued: “A number of people have contacted me to say that they couldn’t register on the HSE portal using the fada in their name so were forced to drop the fada.”
The Minister of State Ossian Smyth also said “the office of the Chief Information Officer had fully tested the digital Covid cert system using spellings including the síneadh fada which had worked.”
He said the issue may have arisen from an “upstream system” where data may have been entered incorrectly by a hospital, vaccination centre, or GP’s.
The Minister of State Thomas Byrne said it was “very clear digital Covid certs impacted by the issue” would have to be reissued by the appropriate department.
