Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I agree wholeheartedly with the Deputy's ambition. It is exactly in line with what we are trying to do, namely, to get in as much vaccine as possible as early as possible and get it into people's arms straight away. That was what was agreed with the EU. The EU bought as much as it could. Every member state gets a per capitaamount, so we get 1.11% of the total amount the EU could get. It is shared equally for each delivery each month. The figure I mentioned is the maximum amount the EU could get and we get a pro rataportion of that.

I fully agree about the mid-February delivery. We are doing everything we can to bring in the vaccine early. I have received the same confirmation that the Deputy mentioned. The first question was whether the vaccine exists and whether it will be delivered in mid-February only because it has not yet been produced. We have confirmation that it does exist, so that is exactly what we are trying to do.

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