Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 16 December 2020

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health

Roll-out of Covid-19 Vaccination: Discussion

Photo of David CullinaneDavid Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome all the witnesses. We have very limited time so, unfortunately, we are limited to ten minutes. As the witnesses can imagine, there are a lot of questions we would want to put so we will not get through all of them. I start by commending Professor MacCraith on the work he has done along with his team. He has presented an excellent framework to the Government and this committee so I commend him and his team. I also commend Dr. Henry and Dr. Glynn, who did some work in this area. I know that in his opening statement, Professor MacCraith spoke about the work that was already done by the HSE when his team was put in place. It is a really good and strong start and a good framework and I commend everybody involved. Obviously, we have questions relating to the substance so I hope they are taken in the constructive spirit in which they are put.

We have advanced purchase agreements with a number of different companies. In his presentation, Professor MacCraith said that it totals 14,355 potential doses. That will obviously depend on approval by the regulators. Has Professor MacCraith had any interaction with any of the manufacturers in terms of their advance manufacturing? My understanding is that many of these companies have already produced tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of doses that are simply waiting for regulatory approval. I will start with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Do we have any idea how many of the 2.2 million doses we are in line to get under the advanced purchase agreement as part of the European Commission's proposals? Do we have any idea how many of those will come on stream when or if regulatory approval is given? Let us just that the regulator signs off on this vaccine on whenever date it is. Do we know how many of those 2.2 million doses we are likely to get in the first phase of delivery?

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