Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. We are following the process as part of the EU. Our regulator is the European Medicines Agency, EMA. I can tell the Deputy from an update I received yesterday that the EMA is looking at some of these other vaccines, which are not the ones we have all been talking about. That is happening. We actually have quite a lot ourselves, however. For example, the three of which we are all aware, because they are now actively being deployed, are Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca. We are also quite aware of Janssen or Johnson & Johnson. Hopefully, that will be coming soon. It has a very high effectiveness and is a single dose. I hope the EMA will make a decision on that very soon.

We have also signed up to three further vaccines, which are CureVac, Valneva and Novavax and, therefore, in our own advance purchase agreements, we now have seven vaccines. I believe that comes to approximately 18.5 million doses, and because Janssen is a single dose and the others are double dose, this will vaccinate a little more than 10 million people.

Yes, the European Medicines Agency, EMA, is looking more broadly as well at other potential vaccines.