Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Today is a good day for many businesses and people going back to work as we re-enter level 3 of the plan for living with Covid-19. I am glad our party suggested some time ago that we endeavour to have an opening up for the Christmas period. In fairness, the Government has followed that, so today is a good day. However, the critical discussion around kitchen tables at Christmas will be about vaccines. I wish to ask the Taoiseach some questions about this. In America, Food and Drug Administration, FDA, approval for the Pfizer-approved vaccine is due on 10 December. I presume European approval will happen in a similar timeframe. We have a number of other vaccines coming on stream, with various press statements saying they have certain success rates, etc. They all need to be validated, but this is very positive and let us talk about it in a positive way because I feel there has been some negativity towards this in the past few days which has not been helpful. We need to plan for this in a fairly detailed manner. We need a comprehensive roll-out strategy that will deal with all the vaccines that will be available to us. We need to know which vaccines we are purchasing through the European model and we need to know distinctly the plan for the roll-out. I appreciate that Brian MacCraith is being brought in to co-ordinate the new team that will look after this but I feel we need to go broader than that. I am concerned.

This is not something the Taoiseach or the Government can get wrong in any way, shape or form. I believe we need outside expertise. If we take on board what happened in relation to the roll-out of the flu vaccine, a repeat of that situation would leave a lot to be desired. Last year, the Labour Party made suggestions very early about purchasing flu vaccines but we were ignored. We need outside expertise. We need logistics expertise. Clearly, we need a Minister who will be accountable to this House and who will be responsible for vaccine roll-out.

I am asking the Taoiseach clearly whether he will consider putting one Minister in charge of the most important thing in our country for the next 12 months. I appreciate that the Minister for Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, will be very busy with other things, but we need one person who will be at Cabinet. Obviously, the Taoiseach can decide who he feels is best for that role, but we need one person who will be responsible for the roll-out of the vaccines which are going to change the lives of everyone in this country. That person should be responsible for procurement, logistics, roll-out and everything else. Will the Taoiseach please consider that? Given the change in tone in some quarters, the absolutely ludicrous commentary on social media from certain anti-vax quarters and certain polls regarding how supporters of various political parties will or will not support vaccine roll-out, I think we really need somebody who is actually going to be the person responsible for the most important thing in this country over the next 12 months. Will the Taoiseach please consider that?

See this speech in context