Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am glad the Minister has acknowledged that there was not a perfect roll-out. I acknowledge the enormity of the task of trying to vaccinate the whole country. Let me say that publicly. I also want to repeat that it is simply part of an overall approach. My worry is that we are now focusing entirely on the vaccination programme, which I understand, but there is a much bigger issue, namely, how we deal with the pandemic.

Let me finish on the practical side. Last week the Minister got a little excited about what I pointed out. Today many other colleagues have pointed out the difficulties faced by GPs. We contacted GPs in Barna, Spiddal, Carraroe and the Aran Islands. There were significant difficulties in the vaccination operation, which were not caused by the pharmaceutical companies but rather the operation of the HSE in its failure to communicate and deliver vaccines. It treated three islands as one unit, which highlights the importance of having a policy for the islands.

I will leave that aside for the moment. The Minister has acknowledged that and has said there is a call centre. He might come back and clarify the nature of the call centre. Has it been privatised or is it is within the HSE? What is the cost of it?

Today is 11 March. I am sure that has not been lost on the Minister, but he did not state in his speech that on this very day a year ago a pandemic was declared. When the World Health Organization declared that pandemic, it said it did not use the word "pandemic" lightly or carelessly. It said it had rung the alarm bells loud and clear. It went on to state that all countries could still change the course of the pandemic. It was a very strong and positive message from the World Health Organization. At that stage, 81 countries had no cases and 57 had fewer than ten. What was the WHO message? It was to detect, test, treat, isolate, trace and mobilise. The WHO representative said that was doable. He said countries should prepare and be ready, and to detect, protect and treat, reduce transmission, innovate and learn. I would love an opportunity to be part of a debate in the House on that message from the WHO a year ago, and our utter failure, along with a lot of other countries, to embrace the message, realise where we were and take appropriate treatment.

I can forgive any Government for what was done in February, March and April, because it was caught on the hop, but it had the whole summer to prepare for vaccination and how we could finally open up our country in a safe manner. I was always a proponent of an approach to zero Covid. The current lockdown was totally avoidable had we dealt with this in the beginning instead of getting caught up with what was or was not a substantial meal in a pub and dividing one pub from another, as opposed to acknowledging that we were facing into a pandemic with an utterly starved public health system, a public hospital system that was at crisis point and so on.

I need to repeat this because in the middle of all of this, while focusing on numbers in respect of the vaccination programme, we are forgetting how the pandemic arose. I do not have time to go into that, but we know the connection between what we are doing to nature and the natural environment and the rise of pandemics. There was a failure in our public services.

Having put that in context, I have left the Minister very little time. I am simply raising these matters with him. On the practical side, he said 99% of the problems on the ground had been sorted out. I do not believe that. I believe the figure is over 90%. Can the Minister of State confirm that everybody over 85 years of age will be completely vaccinated? The word "some" has been used for a few weeks. I also ask for clarification on the call centre.

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