John McGahon (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I seek a discussion on the concept of the vaccine strategy and the roll-out behind it.There has been wonderful news every Monday for the last three weeks about the strength of the vaccines. Yesterday, the Taoiseach said that he wants to present the roll-out strategy to the Government on 11 December. Perhaps we should consider inviting the Minister to the House before Christmas for statements on the roll-out strategy. That is my request today. I believe it would be a good idea. There are a couple of things about the roll-out strategy that should be considered and clearly outlined. What is the tiered system? Will it be healthcare workers first and elderly people second or how will we do it? The other issue is what we are going to do to encourage mass co-operation with the roll-out. What are the targets and the timescales? Do we want to have X amount of the population vaccinated by Y date, for example? It should be clearly outlined.

I will explain the benefit of that. As we are now coming out of our second lockdown, we are facing an uncertain Christmas and January. Senator Keogan was correct. My view of RTÉ is that the "Six One News" for the last couple of months has been like the fifth horseman of the apocalypse, for want of a better phrase. I strongly believe that. If the Government can produce a clear and detailed vaccine strategy before Christmas, it will provide a major level of reassurance to the Irish public. It would say to the public that we have done fantastically well over 2020, there is light at the end of the tunnel and this is the plan for us to get through it. If that could be published in as much detail as possible before Christmas, it would provide great reassurance to the public.