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

It does not do that and the Deputy should not suggest that it does, or assert that it does. That is what the Deputy said. I have no doubt that the public health expertise will engage with disability organisations in terms of the roll-out of the vaccine. In the first instance, it is being rolled out to the elderly and residents in nursing homes because they are the most vulnerable. The data from the first wave show that. We know what happened. There was serial testing in nursing homes to keep the pressure on the virus in nursing homes and likewise the vaccination. We will work with the Disability Federation of Ireland. Nobody is making premeditated decisions to deny anybody. We received the sequencing from the national immunisation advisory committee through NPHET.

It is important to say to every Member of the House that if we all start coming at this from different perspectives in terms of the order of prioritisation, we are going down a slippery slope towards the politicisation of this. I believe that, insofar as is possible, prioritisation should be the domain of public health expertise in terms of who the vaccine will help most in protecting illness and protecting people from dying. That is the motivation behind it.

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