Dr. Peadar Gilligan:

I will address the Deputy's initial question on when all healthcare workers will be vaccinated. We have been meeting with the HSE on a weekly basis on this matter. As it stands, only 49,000 are fully vaccinated. I know figures are thrown out about so many doses, so many vaccines etc., but that is the reality. The figure I gave refers to those who have received their first and second doses.

It is nearly by chance that healthcare workers are getting the vaccines this week. If the decision had not made regarding the AstraZeneca vaccine, healthcare workers' access to vaccines would probably be delayed until next week or the week after. When the decision was made in regard to the over-65s and over-70s, it meant that the vaccines in question were available to healthcare workers this week. We understand the portal is open and live today. We understand that front-line healthcare workers began to be vaccinated yesterday and are being vaccinated today. That refers to first doses; they will have to get a second dose in 21 to 28 days and, in the case of AstraZeneca, after a longer timeframe. It is going to be a significant period down the line, into March and April, before those healthcare workers are fully vaccinated. The understanding from the HSE at the moment is that by the end of February, all of those staff will have got their first doses and some of them will start getting their second doses.

I know my colleagues would like to respond on the other matters raised by Deputy Durkan but I have a couple of other points to make. We have said all along that the vaccination portal, which is only working today, or at least we hope it is working today, was meant to be in operation from 28 December last. Six weeks later, it has only begun working from today. That has been a major failing on the part of the HSE in terms of its IT infrastructure. The portal was meant to be up and running when the vaccinations were up and running. It is clear that healthcare workers have delivered. Nurses and doctors on the front line administering the vaccines have delivered. They have done so across seven-day weeks and covering long hours. Some of them have gone in voluntarily in their own time to get the vaccines rolled out. Front-line healthcare workers have rolled up their sleeves and really delivered in that regard as well as trying to provide a Covid service and a normal healthcare service.

In regard to student nurses, the dithering that has gone on by the Minister and the Department of Health is completely unacceptable. I am not making any political points here, because I am completely apolitical, but when the situation was bad last March and April, the former Minister made a clear decision to utilise the student nurses to allow the health service to respond to the crisis. No one can doubt that January this year was much worse than the scenario that existed last March and April. Why the dithering? The Government must make the decision to utilise these valuable, skilled individuals to allow the health service to respond in a situation where we have had 7,000 to 8,000 people absent from work.

An issue that we have not focused on at all is the situation in long-term care facilities. The reality is that we talk about the numbers in ICU and in our acute hospitals but many patients with Covid-19 are in our long-term care facilities. Many of them are not even going to acute hospitals. Many of them are on syringes and are receiving a high level of care at a time when staffing is decimated in those services. We have had staff from across the public service redeploy into our long-term care facilities in order to care for those patients. That situation has been overlooked. It is time to start publishing the figures for Covid-19 patients in our 582 long-term care facilities as well.