Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I want to put on record that we could have had questions and answers this morning. Many of the questions that have been asked by the preceding Deputies and others that are going to be asked are ones he would be able to answer easily enough. We all accept there is stuff he cannot answer and would have to come back to us on.

We welcome the Minister's contribution on "Morning Ireland" earlier and his statement on the Janssen and AstraZeneca vaccines for 18- to 34-year-olds. It is something our leader, Deputy Kelly, and the Labour Party have been calling for all week. We are very happy that has been brought forward. It messed up my planned script for this morning, I must say but that is not a big issue. On the opt-in element for people aged between 18 and 34, will he be able to confirm at some point how that will match up with the mRNA vaccination system? We must ensure we do not reach a stage where there will be a cohort of 18- to 34-year-olds that has not opted in but is not captured by the parallel system and ends up falling through a gap. I am not going to say this is rushed; I will be positive and call this a reactive process. I just want to ensure young people are not going to fall through a gap, which is very important. Is the Minister sufficiently confident in our supplies that, with this parallel process, we will by 13 September have enough young people vaccinated in advance of third-level education terms restarting?

There are now reports that some states, such as Romania, have excess supply and Denmark is purchasing some of that. Is Ireland actively in the market with other states to purchase surplus supplies? That would be really interesting to know.

I was due to be vaccinated on Wednesday. I got a text asking me to fill out a form online. It had two questions, namely, did I have Covid and did I have a coagulation condition. I was scrupulous and in my two short responses I said "No" but then I got a text saying my vaccination appointment had been cancelled. I rang up the next day thinking I had messed up and got great customer service on the 1800 number. It turned out this text has been piloted with a number of people in my cohort and there have been major problems with it. I have since had people of my own age contacting my office who did the same thing. They filled out answers to the two short questions. These are questions that were asked in seconds in the vaccination centres. There is no real need for this and that has been recognised. That said, there are now a number of people to whom the process is now shut, myself included, and we are waiting for a repeat vaccination. I would be interested to know just how widespread that its. It is probably small enough but it is affecting a few people.

The AstraZeneca vaccine for people over 60 years has already been raised and I note people over 50 years are caught up in this as well. They are becoming the left-behind people of this vaccination programme. It is a positive process and admittedly, is something we have never done at this scale before. However, the one consistent negative representation I am receiving in my office about the process relates to this group. Those people really need to see the Minister and the Government lead with something which is going to improve that for them and which is going to try to shorten it. As Deputy Cullinane said, he will be fully vaccinated, as will many people in their early 40s and late 30s, before people in their late 60s and that is not right.

On antigen testing I heard the Minister on the radio this morning saying he had now set up an implementation group. This is a huge issue. There are people out there now using antigen testing. Tests are readily available and people know how to use them. They are effective. We know they do not meet the gold standard like PCR. We have been hearing that for a year and people know it as well. I believe the Minister is a supporter of how antigen testing can be used within the overall system of testing. As someone representing a constituency that has many aviation workers, it is difficult to see aviation continuing to be treated separately from every other industry, especially when there were examples of how we could have piloted antigen testing on a route-by-route basis, which we saw at the transport committee of which I am a member. The system was there and it was acknowledged by the aviation industry and people in the HSE that it could be done. It was never done. As for the role of NPHET with respect to antigen testing, the team's appearance at the transport committee a couple of weeks ago was quite incredible. NPHET brought absolutely all its big hitters. It was quite an aggressive meeting and it did not need to be like that. At the root of that was this feeling around antigen testing and how it is not being used in aviation. We are in July now and we have two and a half weeks now until 19 July. The aviation industry needs some certainty on the EU Covid certificate. They need certainty as well in relation to children being vaccinated in relation to travel. In terms of children being vaccinated in general, we need more information on that.

I will finish on the matter of indoor and outdoor dining because I am running out of time. I am sure everyone has picked this up, including the Minister, but not since "Golfgate" last year have I experienced such anger in my office as I did when the announcement was made by the Government earlier this week. People want to be in this together and for the most part feel they have been. However, when the Government is implementing a policy that is going to drive a wedge between younger and older people, the whole edifice could fall down. I hope the Minister has pulled some of that back now with the Janssen and the AstraZeneca vaccines for 18- to 34-year-olds but he should not take that for granted. There is a whole heap of work that must be done to ensure our young people are treated with the respect they deserve after everything they have been through as a cohort over the last year and a half.

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