Seanad debates

Tuesday, 26 January 2021

Covid-19 Vaccination Programme: Statements

 

10:30 am

Photo of Gerard CraughwellGerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House today to represent the Minister for Health at this important debate. The HSE is being overstretched in the responsibilities that have been placed on it by the Government. It is responsible for the general healthcare of the public as well as testing and tracing and now it is responsible for the roll-out of the vaccine. There should be a single person reporting directly to the Taoiseach who is responsible for the roll-out of the vaccine and that person should have the Taoiseach's authority to cut through any red tape or any blockages that may be in the system in order to get the vaccine out as fast as possible.

With respect to the vaccine, why is the Government not giving the numbers? Every evening on RTÉ we get the bad news at 6 o'clock. It has become a feature in all the households with which I am engaged that at 6 o'clock every evening they wonder what the numbers will be that evening. Would it not be great to hear that we rolled out 1,000 vaccines today, or that we had 1,000 infections but rolled out 2,000 vaccines? Would that not be an important PR message to get out there for the Government? More important, it would give hope to the people who are depending on these vaccines. Once the vaccines were approved, a sort of euphoria ran through society and people thought it was great because there was a vaccine on the way and they were covered. They thought it was great stuff and that we would all be able to get back to normal. That was until they looked at the ready reckoner that was put on the Internet some time ago. I looked at it and if someone is 40 years of age and healthy, he or she is not likely to be vaccinated until some time between November 2021 and May 2022. We need to make people aware that this is a slow and extremely arduous programme to roll out. Not only that, we must make them aware that the manufacturers themselves can run into problems as it goes along. The Government has to be honest with people and say that AstraZeneca or others may run into production difficulties and if they do, it is going to set back our programme. People need to be aware of that and comfortable with it.

I cannot for the life of me understand why we are not rolling out antigen testing. It is being rolled out in every school in Austria and in other European countries. For some reason, we seem to have a mental block when it comes to antigen testing, which would give a test result in 30 minutes. It would put us in a situation where we could open our schools, retail and restaurants by testing staff at the point of entry every morning. I am no medic but from the little knowledge I have, I understand that an antigen test will give a result within 30 minutes and that it is particularly good where there is a heavy infection. There have been some moves recently to do that.

We had a discussion this morning about the leaving certificate, which should be postponed.It should be scrapped this year. We should either set the year back or put ourselves in a situation where we will deal with the same system as we had in 2020. This is a matter that is of concern to me.

We have a two-stage roll-out of the vaccine on the island of Ireland. Northern Ireland is being rolled out in one particular way and the Republic is being rolled out in a different way.

The issue of quarantine has come up. I heard the Minister for Justice saying on Sunday that we are not going to control the Border and that she did not intend to discuss it any further. We controlled the Border for foot and mouth disease in 2001 to protect sheep and cattle. We cannot cull humans so surely to God we should control the Border. The problem with controlling the Border is that countless Governments have disinvested in the Defence Forces and in the Garda presence on the Border, with the result that we would have great difficulty in doing it, but we should do it in co-operation with the PSNI in Northern Ireland, where people crossing from this side over would also be stopped. If we cannot get agreement with the Northern Executive on an exactly similar system, a facsimile of both sides, we must seal the Border and allow our vaccination programme to go ahead independent of what is going on elsewhere in the world. I ask the Minister of State - it may be unfair to do so - to set out precisely what has been discussed that is stopping the control of the Border.

On the original plan for the roll-out of the vaccine, nobody would deny those who are in long-term care facilities and who are 65 years of age or over from having the vaccine. I would like to know how far we are with that process and how many nursing homes are left in the country that need to have the vaccine. I have no difficulty with that at all.

The title of front-line healthcare workers is a title which is fraught with all sorts of argument. Who is on the front line? I had surgery two weeks ago in hospital and I have to say that the staff and front-line people who looked after me were marvellous. I was tested on the way in, while I was in there, and on the way out. It was fantastic. Everyone will agree that people working in medical institutions should be administered the vaccine. We want to open schools, however. I do not want to be told today that children do not transmit the Covid-19 infection or that they are not susceptible to it. My three-year-old granddaughter tested positive for Covid-19 and locked us all up for a fortnight. If she can test positive, at just three years of age, any child can. From that point of view, we should be looking after our teachers. They are as important a part of front-line work in this country as the hospitals are if we want to get our children back into the schools.

The same point applies to the Defence Forces and the Garda Síochána. I compliment the Garda. Every day over the weekend where I live close to the Dublin Mountains there were Garda checkpoints all over the place turning people back. These personnel were doing the job that they are being asked to do by the Government. They should have been vaccinated by now in order to protect them.

The policy in respect of 65- to 69-year-olds with medical conditions is seriously flawed. I am also thinking of the children over 16 years of age with cystic fibrosis or who have suffered with cancer and whose immune system is seriously threatened. Why have we not included them in one of the top levels of the roll-out so that they would be protected from the earliest possible date?

When we talk about key workers, for me - and I do not know how my colleagues feel about this - the key worker is the young lady or man who is sitting at the cash register in Dunnes Stores and the bus driver who is met every day by the few people who have to travel to work. I have tremendous respect for Professor MacCraith but at the end of the day we have to go back to look at who the real key workers are.

There are many other things I would like to say. Where the vaccine is concerned, I ask the anti-vaxxers is to get off my back. I do not want to hear from them.If I need to, I will have my vaccine given to me out on the plinth in full public view. These clowns are causing serious problems, particularly for elderly people who are wondering whether they are right and whether there is something wrong with the vaccines.

I congratulate the Minister of State on the good job the Government is doing, but we need to ramp up PR in this regard.

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