Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

The Minister said earlier that it is his intention that every citizen would be vaccinated by September. Maybe he will clarify that. He presumably meant every resident as opposed to every citizen.

On the target date for completing vaccinations in nursing homes, the Minister had set a target for the first jab and then the second jab. It is unlikely that those target dates will be met so have new target dates for the completion of both rounds been set?

I refer to the unfortunate incidents we saw in which the order of priority was not observed in three hospitals. That is such an Irish thing and it undermines confidence hugely if there is a perception that there is pull or political influence of any kind and that it is a matter of who one knows. Now that the Minister has put the protocol in place, and it is important to bear in mind that this was announced on 12 January and those incidents were mainly before that, does the Minister intend to introduce sanctions if that protocol is breached?

On registration, when will the system go live? What about people who do not have access to a computer or to the Internet? How will that be addressed? What about people who do not come forward to register, namely those hard to reach people who we always have difficulty with for other public health programmes? They need vaccination so what is the plan for reaching those people?

I have a concern about governance. I strongly felt there should be a separate governance framework for the vaccine programme. My understanding is it is being led by the chief clinical officer, who is more than busy with all of the other work he is doing. It concerns me that there is no dedicated lead on the vaccine programme. I am also concerned that there is confusion about the task force, the national immunisation advisory committee, NIAC, and the HSE and who calls the shots here, except that ultimately the buck stops with the Minister. It would be better if there was a dedicated lead for this, rather than somebody who is already exceptionally busy.

On the order of priority, there is a lot of concern among patient groups, including among people who have had transplants and people who have serious conditions such as cystic fibrosis or Down's syndrome. There is a lot of concern that the number of front-line workers will be growing all of the time and that they will be pushed further down the list. While there are a lot of people with loud voices speaking on behalf of different front-line and other workers, it is important that we ensure that people who have serious medical conditions are treated or get access in time.

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