Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for her questions. With regards to the vaccination centre for Drogheda, I will take that back to the HSE later today. Deputy O'Dowd has asked the same question.

The short answer on the other questions is there are not precise numbers that public health follows. There is no single measure or metric in terms of the level of cases, the level of transmission or the percentage of people vaccinated that leads to certain measures being relaxed. Essentially, what happens is NPHET looks at all of the data in the round and brings a recommendation to me that I then bring to Cabinet. At the same time, Government looks at a wide variety of additional measures around the economy and various other social metrics as well. The Covid committee meets and then Cabinet meets. That is the process whereby decisions are made. Many different matters are factored in.

I hear loud and clear the same calls that we all are getting from our constituencies right around the country that people want society to open up as quickly as possible. Obviously, hospitality wants to open as quickly as possible. Hospitality, the music industry and the arts, for example, have borne some of the heaviest brunt of all of this. The reality is their worlds, the wonderful things they do for us, are to allow us to congregate to meet each other to experience music or whatever it may be and, unfortunately, that is where this virus spreads. We cannot give exact dates at present.

With regard to four out of five people who want a vaccine being offered one by the end of June, we are on track but, as the past week has demonstrated, it can be a very bumpy road. We had a lot of vaccines restricted and the next day we had more than 500,000 additional doses come online. At the same time Johnson & Johnson stated it was pausing delivery of its vaccine. People talk a lot about targets. Our target, my target and the HSE's target is that the vaccines are administered as they come into the country. If they continue to come in at the rates that we have been told, then we are still on track at the end of June for four-in-five adults who want a vaccine to be offered one.

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