Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Táim ag roinnt mo chuid ama leis an Teachta Harkin. I ask the Minister to forgive me if I do not use my two and a half minutes to table questions for answer but I wish to make a few comments in the context of openness and accountability, the importance of which I am sure he very much appreciates. He made a speech today. He did not use his time. He did not share it with the Minister of State. I would have thought this was the perfect time to bring an element of openness and accountability into the title of this, which is the vaccination programme. It is absolutely - I will put it mildly - unfortunate that the Minister did not use his time to do that because I am on record many's the time as saying I have worked with the Government on draconian legislation in return for maximum information. We did not get that today. In fact, the Minister used his time again to acknowledge the wonderful work being done by the front-line staff, which I absolutely agree with. Let us put that aside, though. Let us acknowledge that and deal with issues and let us have reasons. The Minister failed to use his speech to deal with practical issues such as the problems with spare vaccines and how they were used - I would have liked him to have dealt with that - and vaccines having to be discarded because they were incorrectly stored. He gave us figures, which are very welcome, but he did not put them in the context of how many front-line staff and residential staff are still waiting. That would have been very helpful to us in then working through the figures and working with him in what is a pandemic that is absolutely threatening to our health and our lifestyle. I am really angry that this is what has happened today and that the Minister chose not to use his time.

It is quite clear that he believes vaccines are the only game in town. I would have thought vaccines were just part of an overall programme. I would prefer if there were a zero Covid strategy. I agree with my colleagues on the left that that is what we should aim for and that vaccines should be a part of that. I would have thought the Minister would have come in here today and told us about the vaccine contracts. What have we signed up to? How much money have we given? He had an extraordinary sentence in his speech: "Private sector innovation has merged with public sector investment ... to ensure the speedy development of safe and effective vaccines." What we have ensured, certainly, is the production of vaccines at a huge profit to the companies. It would be very helpful if we had copies of the contracts and details of the indemnity. How much money has been put in? The Minister has chosen to do none of these things, so it is difficult to have trust. Most of all, there is no overall plan with vaccines as part of that strategy.

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