Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There is no question but that the recruitment process needed to be streamlined. The HSE has looked at it and it has streamlined it. Issues are being raised which to all of us might seem very strange and superfluous to hiring vaccinators. I have looked into those issues for the very reasons the Deputy raises. Retired doctors are being asked for their leaving certificate results. That might seem utterly superfluous to us. How anyone did in their question on Shakespeare really does not matter in terms of vaccinating against Covid. The reason is that when we are hiring healthcare workers to perform tasks like this, criteria are set out in law that have to be met and one of those criteria is previous qualifications. Do the leaving certificate results matter? Obviously not. It is a requirement in law, so what we could do is look at changing the law, but as we would both agree, speed really matters here, so that is the reason for some of these things which do not make sense to any of us.

I do not know, but on the BCG shot, for example, I would imagine again that there are clear protocols that have to be gone through, in particular when one is hiring healthcare professionals to vaccinate people who could be quite vulnerable.

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