Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister has just said that the hospitals were contacted to see how many vaccines they could take. Deputy O'Donnell has spoken of the 3,400 vaccines that came to Limerick. The Minister is saying that it is a management problem in some of the hospitals that they could not deal with the amount of vaccines.

I give all the praise in the world to the front-line staff, from doctors, nurses, carers, porters and across the board. In Limerick, the area I represent, there are front-line staff in Covid wards who are not getting vaccines and I hear that there are people in management, not directly involved in Covid care, who are getting vaccines. That is a management problem. The Minister has inherited this. It has been apparent for years that the HSE and the health system is broken. The rolling-out of the vaccine proves that mismanagement of hospitals without a shadow of a doubt. I brought that up on my first day in the Dáil. If someone cannot manage something, he or she should ask for help. It is not a sign of weakness to do that if one is managing a situation. We have a runaway train.

The Minister said there would be full traceability of the vaccines that have gone out. I hope this is not like the mother and baby homes where people will be apologising in 40 years' time for mismanagement of vaccines which are going to people who do not work on the front line. The people providing front-line services must get the vaccines first. GPs are getting emails to say they are on the list for a vaccine and getting another email an hour later to say that was a mistake. It is mismanagement. It is not the carers' problem but a management problem. The management of the HSE and the Department of Health are wrong. We need to get it fixed. After the pandemic, I seek the Minister's help to fix it.

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