Neasa Hourigan (Dublin Central, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Chair, I add my support for what has been said as the clinic is in my constituency. I am glad to hear the Minister talk about clinical advice because we are talking a lot about the business case. Recently the committee had a session on long Covid and the HSE said that it looked at the business case but not so much the clinical advice. I suspect that eventually we will follow the UK's lead and include children in our discussion on long Covid and I believe that the location at the Mater hospital would be particular useful in that regard. Anything the Minister could do to progress the issue would be much appreciated.

My next question might be more appropriate for the Minister's colleague as I would like to understand more about the accounting in terms of the €497 million. Throughout the information that we have been given there was a decision not to assign the €497 million to particular subheads but to hold it for whatever eventuality might take place. There is a discussion later on as to how that relates to the vaccination roll-out. Can Mr. O'Grady please explain how the money will be tied away towards the end of the year in terms of the subheads?