John Brassil (Kerry, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State stated the disease is "most common in infancy and early childhood", the latter being children born before October 2016. He also said the most common cases are group B and group C, yet he went to say the advisory committee sees no need to give the meningitis B vaccine to children born before October 2016. That is contradictory and does not add up. If young children are susceptible to meningitis B, there should be a vaccination programme for them. I dread to think what will happen in the coming years if there is an incident, or a couple of incidents, leading to the death of a young child because of meningitis B. We will stand in the Chamber while the Minister of State or the Minister for Health tries to explain why a once-off catch-up programme was not introduced for the vaccine. As I said, if we can save even one life, it is worth doing. The HSE, which provided the information in the first place, stated it was concerned and asked people to be vigilant, is now saying there is no need for a catch-up programme. It does not add up.

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