John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have just eight minutes left. I have ten questions. The guests will not be able to answer all of them in detail here, but they are ten questions that need to be answered. They are reasonably searching and reasonable to ask. Perhaps we will meet the witnesses on a regular basis, but these questions need to be answered.

I notice comment on NPHET in both of the documents and we need to remind ourselves, and I want to remind the witnesses, about NPHET. The early days of NPHET were not covered in glory. We think of Cheltenham, inward flights from Italy and the failure to control clusters. The country shut down to protect the vulnerable and yet the most vulnerable died in significant numbers. We never got control of nursing homes. Here is the witnesses' opportunity. I will not engage in monstering or anything like that, but the witnesses may come back in writing on these questions.

Some experts say there is a lack of a vaccine expert on the oversight committee. Will the witnesses address this? The document talks of training for administering the Covid vaccine. Where is this training? Who is doing the training? Who will take the vaccines to the nursing homes?

I now turn to the hierarchy, or what has been referred to as population sequencing. One of the things that struck me, and continues to strike me, is that we talk of vulnerable groups, but there is one vulnerable group that I believe we have ignored which is the areas of socioeconomic disadvantage where figures have been significantly higher. Case numbers are higher in these areas across age groups than in the stereotypically vulnerable groups of the over 70s and so on. Reference was made to hospital leads, but consider hospitals such as Tallaght University Hospital where there are significant numbers. One of the local electoral areas there had significantly higher than the national average numbers. The Mater hospital is right at the heart of areas of economic disadvantage and the numbers there are also really high. I wonder about the hierarchy of the population sequencing with regard to delivery.

Who is going to staff these centres for vaccination? Where are our guests at in terms of the roll-out, the advertising for or recruitment of staff? We have heard reference to the recruitment of retired GPs and medical staff. What processes have been put in place? Where are we going to find the staff to roll out the vaccine successfully? Who is currently recruiting these doctors?

It does not appear that there are clinicians with experience in vaccines included in the committees. There is mention of the national immunisation advisory committee, NIAC, but it does not have a clear leadership role in this from what I can see in the document.

We saw in the early stages of the virus that medical, nursing and healthcare staff were redeployed and that caused significant issues in the areas from which they were redeployed. Is redeployment being planned to cover the roll-out of the vaccine and, if so, how do our guests propose to address it?

I have a couple of questions about the no-fault compensation scheme. What identifiers is the task force using to build up its database? We do not have a universal healthcare identifier in this country. What kind of steps have been taken in that regard?

I have asked a whole load of questions and can supply them in writing, if our guests like. If they want to give me a general response now, I am happy to take it. I am sorry for shoehorning so many questions into my time. I wish our guests the very best of luck with the work that they do.