We Chat To Tadhg: The Man Responsible For Ensuring Pubs Are Checking Vaccine Certs

WITH growing evidence that the vast majority of patrons at hospitality venues, pubs and restaurants have rarely if ever been asked to show their Covid vaccination certs to gain entry to indoor dining and services, a greater spotlight is being placed on those tasked with ensuring businesses are complying with the guidelines.

After weeks of digging WWN finally found the individual responsible for ensuring compliance, one Tadhg McKerrin.

We arrived at Tadhg’s home for our 9am scheduled interview but there was no answer at the door. Repeated ringing of the bell and of Tadhg’s phone produced no results. However, through a crack in the curtains we spied a man asleep on a bean bag seemingly in the middle of playing FIFA.

Groggy, and dressed only in urine stained boxers and the excessive hair on his body, Tadhg ushered us in before spending much of the next 30 minutes yawning heavily, scratching his arse and eating a bowl of cereal.

“Fun fact about my gaff here, it’s actually uniquely placed in Ireland in that in all directions there isn’t a pub for 50 kilometres. It’s literally the only location in Ireland where that’s possible, kinda makes you wonder why the government gave me the responsibility, right?” Tadhg said.

Keen to make up for lost time and begin shadowing Tadhg as he checked up on pubs and other premises, we attempted to speed him along.

“We’d be really keen to get an insight into what the job entails, do you usually start this late?” we asked.

“What time is it?” Tadhg responded, put out when we told him it was 12.35pm before insisting he said he needed to go back to bed and make for up for the sleep we robbed him of when we woke him up ‘early’.

At roughly 2pm Tadhg reemerged with the addition of a pair of socks on his body. Slow but steady progress was being made but we continued to push him.

“Yeah, yeah, alright relax, we’ll go after The Chase is finished,” promised Tadhg, however, he was forced to row back on this promise once he realised there was a 5 hours marathon of The Chase episodes on.

Now becoming so at one with his couch it was unclear where Tadhg began and his couch ended, the 40-year-old showed no desire to leave despite our insistence he show us what his working day was like.

“Have ya seen Squid Game, made shit isn’t it? Ya haven’t? Ah what, right we’ll stick that on now you have to watch it”.

9 hours after an admittedly entertaining TV series, Tadhg expressed an interest in going to see Dune and James Bond in the cinema back-to-back with a pledge to kick off some cert checking afterwards.

“The book is way better than the movie, haven’t read the book now but it’s better,” Tadhg said emerging from the cinema which was across the road from several pubs.

“Surely you can just check up on the pubs while you’re here?” we pleaded.

“Nah, there’s no point, sure they won’t let me. I haven’t got the cert” Tadhg explained.

“You mean to tell us the person responsible for checking the compliance can’t enter and check up on premises because they don’t have a cert?” we asked, flabbergasted.

“No, I have one like, I just don’t know where it is. I had it on my phone as well but sure didn’t I lose that too, haha. I’m some eejit. Probably haven’t set foot in a pub once since this whole cert checking business began”.

Stunned into silenced by a stupidity on a level we had never witnessed before, it took us a moment to compose ourselves.

“Tadhg, you fucking idiot. You inept, brain cell obliterating troglodyte… they never check for certs. You just have to half open your mouth before the lad on the door say ‘ah go on I trust ya’. So c’mon and we’ll go for pints.”.