Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Dr. Henry referred earlier to over-70s being largely vaccinated. There have been a number of questions today. The difficulty for some people who have contacted us, as public representatives, is that the HSE has been running an advertisement for a number of weeks which states that the over-70s have been largely vaccinated and that it will be moving on to others. This is causing problems for many GP surgeries. Children of elderly parents are contacting their GPs, annoyed and angry, asking why their father or mother has not been vaccinated. They have listened to the advertisements on radio or seen them on television and are asking why their parents are being left behind. There seems to be a difficulty with this. The witnesses may need to tweak the advertisement. A number of GPs have been really upset about this. They tell people that the reason a person's father or mother has not been vaccinated is that the GP did not get the vaccine, which has been a problem.

Advertising has been touched on today. With regard to vaccine hesitancy, are the witnesses talking about some sort of programme? Some of the information imparted today is really useful. Will there be a campaign through the media about vaccine hesitancy? Will there be a plan regarding those staff who may be hesitant, for whatever reason, within the HSE or long-term residential homes? What about the part of our population who do not have email addresses? Believe it or not, there is a small cohort of people who do not have such addresses. What about people who do not have smartphones? Have the witnesses come across difficulties with this?

A number of people have contacted us to say that they did not understand why someone from Donegal or Clare would have to travel to Dublin to get the vaccine. Have those difficulties with the roll-out been resolved?

I listened to what the witnesses said about rare clotting incidents. Many people have questions about this matter. It is atypical and affects a tiny cohort. We are talking about possibly four people out of 1 million. What is the recommendation? A GP has been in touch with me about the issue. What is the recommendation where there have been difficulties with clotting in a family?

Deputy Shortall wants to come in for a couple of questions but maybe the witnesses could address some of my questions first.