Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In answering the question, there is nothing that I or the HSE would like to do more than to be able to say "Here is our week-by-week allocation. Here is what is coming in, here is what is coming in month by month and here is how that feeds into all the various priority groups" and then to be able to put up a simple calculator or drop a document into homes which would give people, in light of their individual profiles and attributes, such as age, underlying conditions, etc., the date on which they are scheduled to be vaccinated. Most Deputies who have spoken referred to this matter. We are all being asked this question about the vaccination schedule. It is the biggest question on people's minds. There is nothing I would like more than to be able to come into the House and give an accurate answer to that question. We must be honest, however, about what we know so far.

What we know so far is that we have the prioritisation groups, and they are as recommended by the National Immunisation Advisory Committee, NIAC, endorsed by NPHET and agreed by the Government. We have that list. After that, we know two vaccines have been authorised by the European Medicines Agency, EMA. Those are the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines. We have a reasonably accurate delivery schedule to the end of February for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and a provisional delivery schedule for the Moderna vaccine. The first doses of that vaccine arrived in Ireland just yesterday, initially at small volumes. For Ireland and every other EU member state, everything after that is informed speculation.

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