Mr. David Walsh:

It is fair enough to say that there is not a surplus as such. Every vaccine we currently have in the State is assigned against a day's vaccinations. The National Immunisation Office has a very difficult job in managing that to ensure that on a given day sufficient vaccine is deployed to vaccinate those people we have committed to vaccinate. On occasion, because of the success in getting a sixth or seventh dose out of vials, there may be a very small local surplus after a day's vaccinations. Guidance has been given out to the system because this has to be used or discarded once it has been reconstituted. Very clear guidance has been given on how that is to be used to vaccinate priority front-line healthcare workers. That is quite small-scale. The National Immunisation Office and the suppliers do a great job in trying to juggle from day to day, especially at this time while vaccine supplies are so tight, to try to meet the commitments we have made. It is very tight.