Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I set up the task force. This is an issue of national priority that goes to the top of the Government and I will stay on top of this until everything is resolved. To be clear, much of the experience and expertise resides in the Department of Health and the HSE. They have been involved in a range of previous vaccination programmes with the national immunisation advisory committee and so forth. One must draw upon the large amount of residual expertise and experience there.

For the information of the House, Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna sought market authorisation yesterday from the European Medicines Agency, EMA, and Ms Emer Cooke, an Irish person, briefed health Ministers this morning. The agency will assess the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine by 29 December at the latest, and perhaps before that. Notwithstanding what happened in the UK yesterday, the responsibility of that authority is huge in terms of recommending a vaccine as safe and effective. We should not create a pressure zone on the regulatory authority to do the right thing here. I say that generally. That is important.

The work of the task force is proceeding at pace. Yesterday saw the delivery of up to nine ultra-low temperature fridges to the country. The trucks are stored in Citywest. The Deputy is correct - we know what the essentials of this will be. Logistics is a key work stream that is being worked on. On the IT infrastructure, an entire database will have to be created with regard to who gets what. There is work on the workforce that administers the vaccine. Due to the scale of this, it will be more than the normal workforce that would administer the vaccine. There is also surveillance, monitoring and interpreting the data subsequently in terms of how it is working, the outcomes and so forth. There is the sequencing of who gets the vaccine first, in what order and how that happens. Of course, communications will be a vital strand. Then there is the overall governance and oversight of the operation.

With regard to the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, the infrastructure is already coming into play with the ultra-low temperature storage fridges that have arrived into the country. They will be commissioned by the middle of next week. Then they have to be distributed within five days from the central depot when a vaccine ultimately arrives here. The view on Moderna is that the EMA is looking at early January for a meeting to assess its market authorisation application.

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