Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The fact is that we are using sheets of paper to record vital data that are needed to track adverse reactions. I took this issue up with a predecessor of the Minister, the current Taoiseach, 18 years ago and the Minister is telling me that we still do not have an IT system in place. When will we no longer be using pen and paper to record the numbers of patients being vaccinated? As the Minister knows, some of our hospitals complained in the past that they did not have enough bins available to them for PPE. There has not been capacity to manage the amount of PPE waste that is being created. With such a high rate of infection in the hospitals, this gives rise to significant concern if we are not able to manage the used PPE. At present, there is an industrial emissions licensing application with the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, to ensure that a system can be put in place to deal with PPE on-site. If I provide the Minister with the detail after this debate, will he intervene with the EPA and plead with it, in the interests of the patients in hospitals across the country and the staff working in those hospitals, to approve this licence once and for all and allow us to protect people who are using our hospitals?

See this speech in context