Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I join wholeheartedly with the Deputy in his support of the staff and healthcare professionals in Letterkenny University Hospital. They dealt with the serious pressure point they had and which we were all watching within a matter of hours. Donegal has done well. As the Deputy noted, the figures were right at the top of the county table recently. As for the figures I have been sent for today since we have been sitting here, the rate is now very slightly below the national average. It is now mid-table and coming down. The people of Donegal are clearly doing an awful lot of hard work to get that figure down and that should be recognised.

I will write to the Deputy and give him a longer answer but the short answer is that the vaccination programme for hospitals is being done hospital group by hospital group. There are about 150,000 front-line healthcare workers in cohort 2 and by Sunday week, 70,000 of them will have been vaccinated. That is the pace we are looking to get through on the first dose. I will revert to the Deputy in writing with the rest of the information.

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