Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I very much agree with Deputy Collins. I have raised previously with the Minister the need to prioritise both persons providing home help and those who are receiving home help. People providing home help go into multiple homes and, likewise, people who receive home help receive it from multiple carers.

I want to ask a specific question. I agree very much with many of the points made with regard to the necessity to vaccinate people who want to be vaccinated in mental health facilities, including those who work in those facilities, as well as hospitals, and for them to be treated exactly the same, and likewise, persons with cystic fibrosis or other underlying vulnerabilities. However, a suggestion was made by some senior people in the Minister's Department that persons who have had Covid-19 would not be vaccinated for some time because presumably if they had it and recovered they would have developed antibodies from that. What is the position on that because if they are not a priority, why are they being vaccinated right now? How many people who have had Covid-19 have been vaccinated? I am aware of medics who have contracted Covid-19 through their work, and we all sympathise greatly with them in that regard, but who have had the vaccine even though they were not sure whether they needed it in light of the fact that they had recently recovered from Covid-19.

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