Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change) | Oireachtas source

Dr. Peter Sloane, who is a GP, was on the radio this morning saying he is dying on his knees because his patients have not received the vaccine as yet. He said there has been huge communication issues and inconsistency in delivery schedules. We are only dealing with 70,000 over-85s, so we should be much slicker in delivering the vaccines and getting them into the arms of people who need them. GPs have the expertise to do that. We will see over the next couple of weeks over-70s, over-80s and the second vaccine for the over-85s. The HSE has to get its finger out and make sure this works effectively.

The transparency of the vaccine programme has been raised here a few times. Can we not see every week included in the data the date we received the vaccines, how many of each vaccine we received and, on the other side of the table, how many cohorts are in each grouping? For example, we could be told how many over-65s have underlying illnesses and or are at high risk with underlying illnesses. How many of each those groups is getting vaccinated and when? That should be put up every week so people can see things moving on, particularly when we reach 250,000 per week, as we have been told we will.

On international vaccination, I put a question in to the Minister last week in relation to the World Trade Organization, asking the Government to support the Indian call for the vaccinations to be produced in their own country. I got a disparaging answer: "Specifically, the TRIPS agreement allows compulsory licensing which is when a government permits someone else to produce the patented product or process without the consent of the patent owner." I refute that. We are already seeing how difficult it is to get vaccines and supply is not what it should be in Europe, where they have ordered them. Nearly 80% of the vaccines have been ordered by the wealthiest countries but we have to make sure other countries get the vaccine. Otherwise, even if we have 80% of our people vaccinated and these countries are not vaccinated, it can easily come back into our country. I demand that the Minister support the call for the India-South Africa proposal. It is crucial they get that. AstraZeneca was supposed to help out here. It is supposed to be the non-profit vaccine that would transform the world but it is not happening. The COVAX idea of us giving money to the WHO to get more vaccines when there is a shortage will not work. There is a huge contradiction there.

I have one further question, which the Minister will not be able to answer here. How can a decision be made that there is a higher risk category among cystic fibrosis sufferers? Every cystic fibrosis sufferer is high risk and should get the vaccination and get the call first.

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