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

I have noticed that there is a consistent theme emanating from Sinn Féin that the Government is discriminating against people with disabilities in the vaccine sequencing but that is not true. I accept that people will engage in politics from time to time but it is not a very nice form of politics to play that sort of line. The national immunisation advisory committee recommended to NPHET a particular sequencing for who should get the vaccine first. It recommended that older people in residential settings should receive it first. People with underlying conditions are high up on the priority list and that includes people with disabilities. Clinical decisions will be made, with the input of GPs, to determine the type of vaccine to be administered to people and when they should get it. This is not about politics or about the Government wanting to discriminate against one group or another. The national immunisation advisory committee has advised on the sequencing and the document is live. Hopefully the vaccines will come quickly and we will see a ramping up of vaccinations in the country. I want to assure people in the disability sector that there has been no singling out or premeditated decision to leave out one group and include another. That is not the way this works.

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