Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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In feedback, pharmacists have told me this morning that they were contacted yesterday by a new relationship manager in the HSE to do precisely that and to get vaccines out. On foot of that, they were advised they would be able to vaccinate people over the age of 18, so they ordered many more vaccination doses. I am thinking of one pharmacy in Blackrock that ordered an additional 800, obviously at a cost, and was then told later in the afternoon that the vaccinations were restricted to the over-50s. I am sure this is just a management issue that can be ironed out, but all these things add up in terms of both urgency and cost. That is just feedback I thought I might highlight with Mr. Watt while I have the opportunity.

A couple of weeks ago, representatives of the National Treasury Management Agency, NTMA, appeared before the committee, along with representatives of the State Claims Agency. One issue on which we are following up as a committee, and I think the Comptroller and Auditor General is too, relates to the clinical indemnity scheme, which Mr. Watt mentioned earlier. What is the relationship between the Department of Health and the State Claims Agency in respect of payments by the latter? Much of this is rooted in health, incident management supervision and so on. Will Mr. Watt talk us through that?