Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for her questions. She asked about the multiple changes causing confusion. The advice we are getting in a very fast-moving programme is changing. The advice we are getting from the EMA is changing. The advice we get from NIAC is changing. The delivery schedules we get are changing. We have a choice. We can listen to the experts and adjust our programme to ensure it follows the clinical advice which requires change, or we can ignore that clinical advice and run a vaccination programme against the best clinical advice and not make any changes.

I think we would both agree we always need to be ready to update the vaccination programme according to clinical advice. It is simply that that clinical advice is being updated quite regularly. It requires some very large logistical changes and changes to which groups get which vaccine. No more than the Deputy, I would love for there to be no changes and for there to be one message outlining when every cohort will be vaccinated and with which vaccines. However, on balance, it is far better for us to take the clinical advice and change the programme, sometimes regularly, and ask the people to stick with us. I think people accept all these changes are in an effort to put safety first.

The Deputy asked about teachers. Any teachers who are medically vulnerable and at high risk or at very high risk are being prioritised along with those cohorts. Indeed, there are teachers in cohort 4, comprising those whose underlying conditions put them at very high risk. About 104,000 people in that cohort have now received their first vaccine and we need to press on with that.

I agree wholeheartedly with the Deputy on the value of carers, the work they do and the contribution they make.

It is absolutely phenomenal. If we had an abundance of vaccines and not a limited supply, there would be nothing that I nor anyone else in this House would want to do more than vaccinate important groups such as carers straightaway. The absolutely clear advice we got from NIAC, endorsed by public health officials in my Department, was that the way of saving the greatest number of lives, protecting the greatest number of people and getting out of this pandemic as quickly as possible was to vaccinate according to vulnerability. Age is overwhelmingly the characteristic that increases risk so vaccinating according to vulnerability is what we have decided to do.

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