Results 17,601-17,620 of 49,836 for speaker:Stephen Donnelly

Covid-19 Vaccination Programme: Statements (22 Apr 2021)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank the Deputy for his kind words on the programme and his questions. There are several cohorts which are either fully or partly using AstraZeneca, including cohort 2 which is healthcare workers of all ages. They will be getting their second dose. NIAC has put a 16-week interval in place for people under 60 with no underlying conditions. Quite a number of people in cohort 4 have had...

Covid-19 Vaccination Programme: Statements (22 Apr 2021)

Stephen Donnelly: At this point we must wait to see whether the vaccines come in. While the Deputy quite rightly points out that there have been very significant volumes moving around, they are only moving by a week or two. Thus, for April, May and June we are due to receive just over 800,000 doses of AstraZeneca and while the deliveries are moving by a week here and there, the task force, HSE and the...

Covid-19 Vaccination Programme: Statements (22 Apr 2021)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank all three Deputies for their very supportive comments on the vaccine programme and all those working on it. Deputy McGuinness asked, as several Deputies have, what the position would be for those who have already received the first dose of the mRNA vaccines. If NIAC recommends to me that we extend the four-week interval to eight weeks or 12 weeks, for example, what will happen to...

Covid-19 Vaccination Programme: Statements (22 Apr 2021)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank the Deputy for her questions. She asked about the multiple changes causing confusion. The advice we are getting in a very fast-moving programme is changing. The advice we are getting from the EMA is changing. The advice we get from NIAC is changing. The delivery schedules we get are changing. We have a choice. We can listen to the experts and adjust our programme to ensure it...

Covid-19 Vaccination Programme: Statements (22 Apr 2021)

Stephen Donnelly: Would the Deputy mind sending me on the details? I will ask the relevant officials directly.

Covid-19 Vaccination Programme: Statements (22 Apr 2021)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank the Deputy for the various questions. I will answer the last question first. Several people have come to me with the exact same question on those over 60 with a history of blood clotting and I put it to public health officials. I want to be careful not to give medical advice as I am not a medic but the answer I got back was that AstraZeneca is safe regardless of any such history....

Covid-19 Vaccination Programme: Statements (22 Apr 2021)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank the Deputies for their support for the vaccine programme. I will feed in Deputy O’Dowd’s question on the Drogheda Institute of Further Education. Deputies Pádraig O’Sullivan and O’Connor both referenced rapid testing. I appointed the expert group and launched the report some time ago. It is being embraced by various Departments, including the...

Covid-19 Vaccination Programme: Statements (22 Apr 2021)

Stephen Donnelly: There is a substantial amount of money in the budget for this year in various different places. There is a contingency fund, which is a central Government fund, and then there is a significant amount in the health budget. An awful lot of the activities involved in the vaccination programme are being funded out of that such as testing, tracing, genome sequencing and pop-up walk-in centres....

Covid-19 Vaccination Programme: Statements (22 Apr 2021)

Stephen Donnelly: The situation the Deputy describes is not one we have at the moment. We are vaccinating several groups in parallel in order to make sure we are using all of the volume of all of the vaccines we get so that we have as fast and effective a programme as possible. However, it may well be the case that we will have excess vaccines as the Deputy said. Given that the countries that we could...

Covid-19 Vaccination Programme: Statements (22 Apr 2021)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank the Deputy for the question. I have a different view on his analysis on zero Covid and test and trace but I know that is not what he wants to discuss. My view is we need to be very careful right now. We are in a slightly risky position in that all of the indicators are very positive but we are not through this, to respond to the Deputy's point. There is a risk that too many of us...

Covid-19 Vaccination Programme: Statements (22 Apr 2021)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank the Deputies for their questions. I will run through them quickly to try and get to all four. I take Deputy Flaherty's point on wanting to get back to normal life as quickly as possible. We all want it. We are all desperate for it for ourselves and our communities, and our business communities are all desperate for it. However, we still have to proceed with care. One of the...

Covid-19 Vaccination Programme: Statements (22 Apr 2021)

Stephen Donnelly: 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...

Covid-19 Vaccination Programme: Statements (22 Apr 2021)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank Deputy Berry for his questions and can assure him that Professor Mac Craith is working beyond what would normally be considered full time. If full time is 40 hours per week, although I know it is a lot longer for a lot of people, then Professor Mac Craith is working well beyond that. I speak to him almost daily, including early in the morning and late at night and I commend him and...

Covid-19 Vaccination Programme: Statements (22 Apr 2021)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank the Deputy for his questions. The over-85 cohort has been substantially completed but there is no doubt that across our country there will be people in that age group who are still waiting. Deputy Higgins, for example, said earlier that there is a GP in her constituency who is refusing to vaccinate his patients who are over 70 and that alternative arrangements need to be put in...

Covid-19 Vaccination Programme: Statements (22 Apr 2021)

Stephen Donnelly: 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...

Covid-19 Vaccination Programme: Statements (22 Apr 2021)

Stephen Donnelly: I am aware of the situation. The current public health advice to me is that the exemption should apply to EMA-approved vaccines. I believe that list will grow. Sinopharm is one of the 12 which is not within the four that have been recognised by the EMA, but it is a reasonable question. The question being posed by Irish people who are in the Emirates right now is reasonable and I will seek...

Covid-19 Vaccination Programme: Statements (22 Apr 2021)

Stephen Donnelly: I thank the Deputy. The question has been put to me directly in the last week and a half. I do not want to stray into giving medical advice, which I am not qualified to give. I put the same question to public health and the Department and the answer I got was that the issue has been looked into in great detail, and the advice from NIAC is that there is no additional risk. However, I am...

Covid-19 Vaccination Programme: Statements (22 Apr 2021)

Stephen Donnelly: Deputy McGrath has come in here week after week and made contributions like he has just made. He has just said several things which are verifiably false, and importantly so. He has stated some quite outrageous things, such as the Taoiseach-----

Covid-19 Vaccination Programme: Statements (22 Apr 2021)

Stephen Donnelly: The Deputy has just stated some really dangerous things, such as saying that healthcare workers are being forced to take vaccines. The problem is that this is a questions and answers session. Every week, the Deputy comes in here and, every week, just like this, he has said many things, many of them false and several of them dangerous.

Covid-19 Vaccination Programme: Statements (22 Apr 2021)

Stephen Donnelly: Deputy McGrath has never once, just as with this week, left time for me to answer or address anything he has said. The protocol in this session is not that Deputy McGrath stands up and makes a list of false claims then gets responses in writing from me. It is a questions and answers session. If the Deputy wants answers, I am here, but he has to leave time for me to correct many of the...