Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

I am sorry but that is the choice. It is a choice that I face along with many of my ministerial colleagues throughout the rest of the world, including those in the European Union. Does Deputy Reilly believe that these Ministers spoke lightly when they said they would not introduce the vaccine this year? Of course they did not.

Third, I will address the question of the 12-month-old daughter of Deputy Kehoe's constituent. We have introduced a pneumococcal vaccine to prevent that child getting particular strains of meningitis, at a cost of €30 million next year. We do these things and we do them as fast as we can, within the resources we can make available, and we do them to a very high quality standard. The screening programme we have introduced is of a high standard and that is what is important. We are doing all these things.

We do not say that we will not introduce the vaccine. We are simply saying that we cannot do so in September 2009. We are not saying that we will abandon this programme or that we will scrap it. I accepted the advice that the vaccine is a good product that should be introduced and I want to see it introduced as quickly as possible.

See this speech in context