Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Okay. I ask the Minister to raise the possibility of provider the Pfizer vaccine as the second dose for certain of the cohort, bearing in mind the principle of vaccinating the older cohorts first. I ask him to consider the possibility of using Pfizer as the second dose. He might come back to us on that.

I want to pick up on those points made about cohort 7, which is a real issue. There is much concern about it on the part of people who have very much limited their lives over the past year. There is a real issue here about people in cohort 7, and still with some in cohort 4, whose GPs have opted out of doing the vaccinations in their practices and are moving to the centres. They are only getting one day per month, however. It means there is a long wait for people to access that vaccine, which is not acceptable. Why is the Minister not using pharmacists at this point? It seems that this would be the ideal arrangement for cohort 4. Is the Minister doing anything about that?

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