MOST IRISH PASSPORT holders who live in Northern Ireland will not be able to use the EU Digital Covid Certificate, BBC News has reported.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin and other senior Irish government ministers have previously indicated that they would.

The vaccine “passport” to facilitate the return of international travel comes into effect in the Republic of Ireland tomorrow.

Last week, over two million people in the Republic of Ireland received their certificates

But many Irish passport holders in Northern Ireland will not be able to get the certificate because they were not vaccinated in the Republic.

Senior Irish government sources told BBC News that this means the Irish state has no official record of their vaccination.

Making the certificate available to Irish passport holders in Northern Ireland was discussed by the Taoiseach and other ministers last week.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney has said the matter would be “kept under consideration”.

In Northern Ireland, the Department of Health has said it expects an “international travel app” to be ready “early [this] week” for those who are fully vaccinated.

The EU Digital Covid Certificate, sometimes known as the Digital Green Cert, has also been made operational in Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, which are not EU members.

It is also available to non-EU citizens living legally in member states.

The certificate provides proof that someone has either been vaccinated with one of the EU’s approved jabs (Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson), recovered from a Covid-19 infection in the past six months or has received a recent negative PCR test.