Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank colleagues right across the House for their time and for the questions, ideas and challenges they put to me. It has been really useful to listen to the various ideas, concerns and issues raised. I have about ten minutes. I took notes throughout the session. Given that we are a little ahead of ourselves, the Acting Chairman might indulge me a little at the end if I run out of time. It is up to him. I have tried to group the issues raised. I will not get to every specific one but I want to try to address the various themes.

Many colleagues spoke about rapid testing. I hear and understand the agitation from within the Oireachtas for rapid testing to play a bigger role. I believe it can and must play a bigger role. We are aware that there are strongly held expert views on both sides of this. I fully respect the views on both sides. Everyone who is advising me, from those in the medical community to those in the scientific community, is doing so with only one objective, that is, to find the best possible outcome for Ireland in this pandemic. That is the only thing motivating people.

My view is that rapid testing has a role to play, or has more of a role to play, and that is why I set up the expert group some time ago. After setting it up, we began to implement its recommendations. It recommended the running of multiple pilots in multiple sectors. That is exactly what we did. Pilots have been run in education, meat processing and various other sectors. The Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Deputy Catherine Martin, and I are working on a pilot right now for the entertainment sector. The Minister of State responsible for sport, Deputy Chambers, and I are examining pilots for sport and so on. All of that has happened. The next thing that happened is what I announced yesterday. I believe it was yesterday but it has been a busy week. I am referring to the setting up of an expert implementation group. It is chaired by Professor Mary Horgan. It has fantastic members who are tasked with supporting State agencies and Departments on pilots, validation, full roll-out and implementation. In this regard, several Deputies referred to the aviation sector, for example, and asked whether it can be included in pilots and validation. It absolutely can. The Government is running this model as a decentralised one so it does not require me or the Department of Health for any Department to say it is going to run a pilot. The Department of Health and the HSE have been providing expert support and now the group to which I have referred will also be providing that expert support. If, for example, the Department of Transport wants to engage with the aviation sector to run pilot programmes, that is entirely up to it. My Department and the group will provide the support for that to happen.

The establishment of the group this week has been warmly welcomed. I thank Professor Horgan, who was also a member of the expert group, and all of the other people who have agreed to give their time, effort and expertise to the new group.

Some questions were asked seeking clarification on the opt-in model I announced this morning. This is very exciting and we all agree it is very positive. Ultimately, it comes down to ensuring that every vaccine dose we have can be used. Whether people choose to make use of them is a separate matter. As the State, the Oireachtas and the Government, we need to ensure all vaccines are available. That is why I asked some time ago for a review of NIAC's position and contingency planning for whether, in a scenario in which it looked like there would be a serious Delta wave, it would allow for a further use of AstraZeneca and Janssen. The answer NIAC came back with this Monday was "Yes". A tremendous amount of work was done during the week. The HSE, the task force, the Department and I worked through the details late last night and turned that NIAC advice around and into implementation in one week. I thank everyone in the task force, the Department and the HSE who has worked non-stop to implement that very quickly.

Deputy Joan Collins asked about the numbers of people in the 18 to 34 age cohort and the amount of vaccine we will have. I will give the Deputy the exact figures, as I have them. The estimate is that the number of people yet to be vaccinated in this group numbers approximately 800,000, comprised of approximately 550,000 from the 18 to 29 age group and about 250,000 from the 30 to 34 age group. We do not know how this will work but my expectation, given that the portal will open for the 30 to 34 age group next Friday and they will start being vaccinated through the established process with the mRNA vaccines approximately one week later, is that many people in this cohort will register on the portal and proceed with the mRNA vaccine. Some will opt for the other vaccines but that is what I imagine will happen. I expect many people in the 18 to 29 age group may decide to opt in because the mRNA vaccine cycle does not start for them until mid or late August and they will want to be vaccinated earlier than that.

The number of vaccines we have available and in our line of sight for July includes approximately 205,000 Janssen vaccines and 100,000 AstraZeneca vaccines. AstraZeneca is contracted to deliver significantly more than that but that is what we have in our line of sight and confirmed right now, so that is all we can plan for. Essentially, through July, we have between 300,000 and 305,000 vaccines but we have no confirmation from AstraZeneca for August. I can tell the House what we are contracted for but that does not really matter because what we need is confirmation of what is coming and that is yet to be determined. We have confirmation from Janssen of 285,000 vaccines for August. This is a considerable number of vaccines. If we assume that most of the 30 to 34 age group will continue to be vaccinated through the Pfizer vaccine and most of the AstraZeneca and Janssen vaccines will then be available for the 18 to 29 age group, that will cover a very sizeable portion of the latter group. Ultimately, it boils down to the fact that this group now has the option of being vaccinated one to two months earlier than anticipated. That would have been welcome even if we had not received the news on Delta but in the context of the latest NPHET modelling, it is very welcome news.

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