Mr. Paul Reid:

I will take the first two questions, before asking my colleague, Dr. Colm Henry, to respond to the Senator's third question. I am conscious of the time limit, so I will be brief.

I will briefly walk the committee through the logistics and the sequencing of the delivery of 250,000 vaccines per week in April, as referred to by the Senator. Put simply, there are plans in place for 37 vaccination centres to open immediately across the country. There will be a total of approximately 800 booths across those vaccination centres. The centres will range in size and will have the capacity to complete different levels of vaccination throughout the country. Some will have 50 booths, some will have between 30 and 50, some will have between one and 20 and others will have between 20 and 30. They will be of various sizes and scale. The centres with 50 booths will administer approximately 5,000 vaccinations per day, with the figure reducing to 3,000, 2,000 or 1,000 based on scale and size. The resourcing plans for the centres are ongoing.

There are three different strands to it. There are now almost 10,000 vaccinators on our register of trained vaccinators throughout the country, being a combination of HSE staff, other healthcare staff and professionals. Our GPs and pharmacists are key as well and they will obviously be part of the vaccination programme. Separate to that, the local community healthcare organisations, CHOs, and hospital groups have initiated their own recruitment campaigns and have progressed very well with recruitment for their vaccination centres. Separate to that again, we have advertised through a national campaign and we have close to 2,200 applicants today, almost 1,100 of whom have already been screened. All have very strong qualifications and many are already Garda vetted and ready to go. That is the resourcing model approach to the vaccination centres.

Vaccination centres will operate on a 12-hour day basis. That does not mean that vaccinators will be working and on their feet for 12 hours. Rather, they will be working on a rotational shift basis. We have determined the resourcing requirement to be approximately 25 staff for every ten booths. Obviously, there will be a requirement for ten vaccinators for ten booths but other administrative staff will also be needed. We have seen six of these vaccination centres in operation throughout the country, including in Galway, Sligo and Dublin, which has given us a real indication of how they work and the processes involved. That is the resourcing model for the vaccination centres.

In terms of how people will be sequenced to come in to the centres, on a national level we are working towards the national prioritisation programme set out by the national immunisation advisory committee, NIAC, and the sequencing agreed by Government. The group we are working on at the moment is quite a challenging one. Cohort 4 comprises those with medical conditions that put them at high or very high risk. We are working through the process of determining the best locations for them to have their vaccinations. We envisage it will be a combination of hospitals, vaccination centres and GP surgeries. As we move into the wider population in April, the vaccination sequencing will be supported by an ICT portal. As we move into the next category of prioritisation, we will be advising the relevant people to register on the portal and they will be assigned an appropriate location for their vaccine. Ultimately, as we move into those larger groups in April, it will be a combination of GP surgeries, pharmacies and vaccination centres in their entirety. That is a very quick overview of the situation with regard to the centres, the sequencing, the who and the when. I will ask my colleague, Dr. Henry, to respond to the Senator's question on medical interns.