Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Byrne, for stepping up and taking this matter. Obviously, it would make more sense if someone from the Department of Health could have been present. If he does not have the answers, I ask the Minister of State to ensure that we get them directly from the Minister for Health. Hopefully, the Minister of State has them.

We all understand that, due to the Covid pandemic, a determination was made to ensure that we would have sufficient supplies of the flu vaccine, particularly for people at risk. That was the cohort of people who would be older and also those who working in front-line healthcare situations, etc. I would like clarity on the figures. We have heard that approximately 1.4 million doses of flu vaccine were bought but the number could be closer to 1.35 million. Seven hundred thousand applications have been made for reimbursement through the primary care reimbursement service. There was a communication problem whereby we believed 600,000 doses had been lost but we now are led to believe that they were delivered and either have not been administered or the applications for reimbursement have not been made. We still have the question of the 50,000 doses that are left.

We have all heard about the difficulties of pharmacies and doctors getting stocks of vaccine. I have heard it in my town of Dundalk. We need to ensure that this is not a difficulty. Doctors and pharmacies, I am led to believe, have been given guidelines to ensure that only at-risk patients or those who would be at risk will get the flu vaccine. How are we ensuring that these guidelines are adhered to?

We need to look at the means by which we could buy more vaccine. What has become clear is that we have insufficient stocks, particularly in view of the circumstances in which we find ourselves. We need to identify a solution as possible.

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