Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish to speak again about clarity regarding the vaccines. We have reached the point in this pandemic where people are under stress like never before. At the beginning, we did not know what Covid-19 was and we did not know how bad a virus it was. Now, however, we do know that information. We all now know people who have contracted this virus, who have been seriously ill and who have been hospitalised. I believe also that everybody at this point now knows somebody who has sadly died. Pharmacists, front-line workers and GPs working throughout this pandemic have faced stress. That is nowhere more acute than with front-line workers, but I was thinking today about pharmacists who cannot triage people coming into their premises in the way GPs can. Those pharmacists and their staff have been suffering the stress of not knowing who is coming in, and the difficulty caused by that situation.

I still cannot answer the question posed to me by a pharmacist in Shankill today concerning what level she was at regarding her treatment of patients. Is she considered to have direct patient contact or is it potential patient contact? I cannot answer that question or other questions. I cannot answer the question that came from the mother of a four-year-old child with type 1 diabetes. She is a lone parent and the only carer for that child. Will she get the vaccine when he gets it? It seems logical that she would, and that the programme has that flexibility built into it. All that mother wants to know to mitigate her stress is the knowledge that she will get the vaccine.

I also cannot answer the question posed by the son of a 91-year-old lady who lives in my constituency. That man is not sure when his mother will get the vaccine. He appreciates that people in congregated settings and in the healthcare system have to get the vaccine before his mother, but the question is when will his mother will get it. The reason I cannot answer those questions or provide clarity in those cases is that we do not have any sort of pictorial graph or spreadsheet in the way that we have for other things in our documents regarding the vaccination implementation plan. I refer to page 19 of that plan, which contains a spreadsheet of activities for three months. I also point to a similar document from Denmark, which was highlighted by the Minister's party colleague, Barry Andrews, MEP, on social media today. That document also contains a schedule, albeit that being an indicative schedule and one with different levels of certainty regarding presentation. It is, however, a schedule.

We have heard the argument in response when these issues have been raised, and I understand why it is being made, that we cannot provide such a schedule because we do not know how many vaccines we will have. We can, however, provide a schedule based on the number of vaccines which we know we have. What would be the schedule based on the current vaccine which we know we will have available? If that schedule is then expedited, then that will be fantastic. If I were to go and tell somebody, based on our current vaccination plan, that it seems he or she will be vaccinated in June, perhaps the first or second week of that month, and it then turns out in reality that the vaccination takes place in the first week in May, that is misinformation I am happy to stand over and a clarification I am happy to make.

Can we do more in the context of providing clarity for people in order that we can try to retain the social solidarity that exists? The implementation plan and the associated communication strategy focuses on convincing people not convinced by vaccines at present. I do not think that is the problem we have in respect of communication. We must address those people willing to queue overnight in the snow to get this vaccine and to try to keep those people with us as we go through the next phases.

Those are my questions for the Minister. In particular, can we go back and examine the possibility of providing a spreadsheet which will give a visible representation to people concerning when they may get the vaccine, while recognising that the process may be expedited? Can I get clarity in respect of pharmacists? If the Minister will answer those questions for me, I will then come in again.

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