Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. It is something that was part of the original plan. I prefer not to speculate on issues like that when there is a lot of thinking going at the moment in terms of what happens after 5 April. However, I take the Deputy's points very much on board.

Regarding the distribution of vaccines to GPs, I hope Deputy Connolly will not mind me referring to the GPs who have said positive things about it. There has been a lot of coverage of GPs who did not get the vaccines when they should have. Sometimes that was unavoidable because supply from the pharmaceutical companies did not come in, but sometimes, particularly in the initial few weeks, the system was not flawless. Improvements were needed and a lot of things have since been put in place. I would like to apologise to the Deputy because I committed two weeks ago to get answers for her on the call centre. She should have had those answers and we will chase them up for her. The GP model is working well. It is not flawless but we are hearing very positive things in terms of the call centre that has been put in place and the improvements to the supply. A week of notice is now given to GPs. There will always continue to be wrinkles for individual GPs as supply goes up and down and we manage what is a very complex logistical operation. We must always endeavour to get it as right as is possible and continue to learn.

Regarding people aged 85 and over, I can confirm to the Deputy that this cohort has now been very largely vaccinated. Within the three-week period we set, approximately 99% of that cohort was vaccinated by GPs. As the Minister of State said, the national ambulance service is engaged this week in a national programme of vaccinating those who are housebound.

Finally, Deputy Connolly, quite rightly, called for a wider debate. We debate the vaccines roll-out regularly in this House for the understandable reason that it is such an important part of our response to Covid. Within healthcare, there are, in essence, three things we are focusing on right now. The context is that huge progress has been made and we now have one of the lowest Covid rates in Europe. We have to protect that progress. As we know, cases have stalled. The question then is what we are doing to address that. As I said, there are three big areas of focus. The first is on targeting suppression of the virus in Ireland. Today, for example, we have opened five walk-in PCR testing centres. We are engaging locally with communities, as well as with unions and the employment sector, to look at work commutes and health and safety within the workplace to target cases associated with commutes to work. The second thing we are doing is further strengthening biosecurity at our borders to protect against variants. The latest measure this week is the launch of hotel quarantining. The third action, which has been the focus of today's debate, is that we are vaccinating as quickly as possible. We are fighting for every single vaccine we can get and we are ensuring that those vaccines are administered as quickly as they come into the country.

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