Professor Brian MacCraith:

I am grateful for the invitation. As I have sent in my statement, I will aim to be very brief.

I have been asked to comment specifically on the role of the high-level task force so I will make just a small number of points on that.

The overall objective of the task force is to support the Department of Health and the HSE in developing a strategy and implementation plan and to monitor the roll-out of, and provide strategic inputs to, an efficient and agile national Covid-19 immunisation programme. As the committee will be aware, the Covid-19 vaccination programme strategy and implementation plan were launched and published on 15 December. The programme has now moved into a live HSE operation with the commencement of the roll-out. The ongoing role of the task force is now to support the HSE and the Department of Health in planning amid uncertainty and in developing and testing scenarios that enable the vaccination programme to be adapted to a very fluid external environment. I do not need to elaborate on the issues surrounding vaccine supply. The task force itself has no executive authority or direct responsibility for the roll-out. The Minister and the Department of Health are responsible for policy matters, regulatory matters and funding. The operational delivery of the programme is the responsibility of the HSE under the leadership of its chief clinical officer, Dr. Colm Henry.

There are two main areas on which the task force delivers. First, the weekly task force meetings draw together expertise and inputs from the Department of Health; the HSE; the Department of the Taoiseach; the Chief Medical Officer; the National Immunisation Advisory Committee, NIAC; the HPRA, which is the regulatory body; the Irish College of General Practitioners; and others. This creates a very valuable forum for addressing all elements of the programme and ensuring full awareness of key risks and issues, which can then be addressed by the appropriate departments or agencies.

The second element is of ongoing importance. The task force is supported by a programme management office, PMO, led by a programme director, Mr. Derek Tierney. A key piece of work developed through the PMO is the programme planning roadmap. This is an integrated design tool which supports adaptive planning of the programme, for example planning for scenarios such as reductions in early deliveries of AstraZeneca vaccines and dealing earlier with the reduction in the number of Pfizer vaccines.

A key operating principle of the programme is that the administration of vaccines will be limited only by supply. The committee will be aware that there have been some challenges in this regard. Supply uncertainty remains one of the biggest challenges to the programme. Supplies continue to arrive, however, and we anticipate continuing to scale up the vaccination programme over the coming weeks and months. The programme is now firmly in operational mode, and a number of the programme's work stream leads are represented here today. The task force continues to meet weekly in its role as support to the Department of Health and the HSE, to monitor the progress of the programme and to ensure a strategic and co-ordinated response to any issues that arise.

I will now hand the committee over to my colleagues to discuss the details of the programme.