Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for this opportunity. The Taoiseach uttered a very important line earlier with which I very much agree, although as a nation we are exceptionally poor at it. He stated it is the duty of the Republic to hold itself to account. We never do that, to be honest, until we are dragged, kicking and screaming. Normally we deny, delay and defend, circle the wagons, and dress up mediocrity as efficiency. That is what we do. It gives me no pleasure to say that vaccination preparation and roll-out in a European context has been an abject disaster and a disgrace. The one thing we had some level of certainty around is the fact that vaccines were coming. We needed to prepare for them and prepare the macro environment for their roll-out in a local and national context and we did not do this. The EU failed miserably in securing adequate supplies for member states. I did not know countries were able to do side deals such as Germany did. If they are, when we get to questions later I will ask what we have done in Ireland about doing side deals of our own to supplement our supplies. I listened to the Minister on Newstalk this morning. He said our target this week was, hopefully, going to be 50,000 vaccinations. If that is to be replicated without some visibility on certainty of supplies at whatever cost to the taxpayer, because remember we are spending €500 million a week or thereabouts on Covid-related costs and expenditure, he should get those side deals done. The Irish people are entitled to the vaccinations of which other countries are enjoying the benefits.

As somebody who lives near a Border county it is certainly not lost on me that quite a number of people in the North of Ireland have been vaccinated already and some of them are not in nursing homes or healthcare professionals. Down here, we are slapping each other on the back saying how great the job we are doing is and taking pictures of a handful of vaccines coming in off a plane and stating we are well on the way, when the reality is we did not prepare when we had time to prepare. Preparing the macro environment means providing for consent and speaking to GPs and pharmacists and preparing the ground so we can roll it out, and not telling the nation that it is such a vast undertaking of scale. Honestly, we have been vaccinating people since the 1950s against polio, TB, and even H1N1 ten years ago. We were not organised. We have this defence in the vaccination plan that describes unknown variants. This covers all the mediocrity. We did not prepare. That is where we are. We are going around looking for consent. We are trying to figure things out. Some hospitals are bringing in local GPs and others are not. Some are giving it to administrators and some are not. Some are giving it to management and not people on the front line and some are not. There is no criticism here of our front-line healthcare professionals.

We are supposed to be leading this. We knew the vaccine was coming. It was not sprung upon us as a surprise. It was not shoved down our throats but we were not ready. Israel is leading the charge globally. Why can we not be like them? Even if we paid €60 per dose to Pfizer or whoever, the cost of two for every person in the country comes in at approximately €630 million, which is less than two weeks' expenditure on Covid, and we are entitled to it. At the Minister's 50,000 vaccinations a week, in 98 weeks or two years, we will be vaccine-free, with all of the associated delay in other clinical care, all of the erosion of all of our mental health, all of the job losses and the cost to the Exchequer in trying to keep people in social supports.

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