Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies for their questions and kind words for everyone working in the vaccination programme. As I know all Deputies will fully appreciate, the people running the programme right across the country, in so many different areas, are working flat out. I engage with them at weekends, at 7 o'clock in the morning and at 11 o'clock at night. They are working non-stop. It is a great privilege to be part of that. I would like to share with the House that it is fantastic to see such a national effort. The HSE, the ambulance service, general practice, everyone in the vaccination centres and the Defence Forces are all involved. It has been an incredible thing to watch Ireland at its very best rolling this out.

As regards Deputy Devlin's question, the current situation on fully-vaccinated exemptions from hotel quarantine are only for EMA-approved vaccines. There are currently 12 vaccines in use around the world. To date, four are approved by the EMA and as of now they are the only ones that have an exemption. I will feed the Deputy's point into the Department so that it can be considered.

On Deputy McAuliffe's question, the walk-in, pop-up PCR centres have been a major success. We are launching another load of them this evening. I believe we are getting one in Wicklow. I know the Deputy has one in his constituency. The positivity rates out of them are, generally, in excess of 8%, which suggests they are very useful. About one in every 11 or 12 people going in is testing positive. Critically, people who are concerned and who may have friends or relatives who are more vulnerable to Covid are getting tested to make sure they are not infected at this point. There has not been an analysis on the wider effect. It is certainly something we can look at. There is much demand locally, we are doing more and more tests and they seem to be going very well on the ground.

On Deputy O'Donnell's question with regard to a decision on the mRNA vaccine, I expect a recommendation in the coming days. Exactly what the Deputy has suggested is being looked at, which is, what happens if we extend the interval from four weeks to eight or 12 weeks.

I thank Deputy Crowe for his comments. We are very aware of the issue he raised around some longer waiting times for the vaccination centres that have just opened. Every one of those centres is working to get faster and faster.

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