Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will start at the end. I agree fully that there are older residential settings which do not come under the nursing home group, so they would not naturally fall into cohort 1. Most of them will come into cohort 2, which includes those people aged over 70 years old. We are starting with those over 85 years of age. We were only discussing this topic with the HSE this week to see what could be done, because, regarding the Deputy's point, there is a higher risk of contagion among a group of older people. I thank the Deputy for making that point and we have asked the HSE to look at exactly that matter within cohort 3.

Regarding September, as Deputy Shortall rightly pointed out to me, it is not "citizens" we are referring to but "residents", and adult residents. I will finish on this point and respond to the Deputy's other points in writing. The September figure was, and remains, if the vaccines arrive according to a provisional schedule. However, that not only includes vaccines which have not even been authorised but those vaccines for which the companies have not even applied for authorisation yet. Were those vaccines to come in, the advanced purchase agreements we have and the conditional delivery schedules would allow the vaccination of every adult resident of Ireland by September. As per last week, though, that is all entirely conditional on supply coming into the country, vaccines being authorised and even vaccine production companies applying for authorisation.

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