Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses. We acknowledge all the work done so far, particularly with regard to the front-line workers. We recognise the job they are doing at great personal risk to themselves and their families and hope this can continue.

We have come to a crucial stage in the fight against the virus. We need to keep public confidence on our side. The public needs to have absolute confidence in the ability of the system to tackle and deal with the virus. One way in which that will be achieved is by ensuring there is confidence in regard to supply chains of the vaccines. It would be very beneficial to have daily and weekly updates on the number of days or weeks of supply still available in the system and to relate that to the number of vaccinations taking place daily. That would reassure the public and it is a very necessary part of the process at this stage.

We need to be able to indicate progress in slowing down the virus, that is, the acceleration of the vaccination programme, while at the same time identifying the period, between the roll-out of the vaccination programme and the introduction of restrictions, by which it is presumed the virus is being curtailed. I acknowledge that we are gaining ground at present, as the recent figures indicate, but we had a problem over the past five or six weeks and we do not want to lose that progress.