Seanad debates

Monday, 1 March 2021

Health (Amendment) Bill 2021: Second Stage

 

10:30 am

Photo of Michael McDowellMichael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. This is genuine and I deprecate the recent media coverage of many of the aspects of the crisis that has tended to personalise the problems we have and, in particular, to do so unfairly with regard to the Minister.

Normally I would be wholly opposed to a proposal, and I said this as Gaeilge níos luaithe, to debate a measure of this kind in such rapid order on one occasion. However, having come to the view we are facing an emergency, as I said earlier, it seems we have to behave as if we are facing an emergency. In this context, I want to make some points to the Minister.

We have daily press conferences telling us how many people have died of Covid and how many people have been detected as carrying the virus. We need the same degree of transparency for the vaccination process. In the Minister's speech, he said we will have capacity to deliver more than 250,000 vaccines per week in April in anticipation of a significant increase in supply. I would like to see a very clear week by week timetable of precisely what the Minister anticipates happening rather than vague language of this kind. I will not hold the Minister to falling short of targets. As far as I am concerned, the more ambitious the targets are, the better. There are some things people are getting tired of, such as photographs of one celebrity or another getting the jab. We have had enough of that and we do not need any more photographs of people getting the job. We do not need token investments, such as kitting out City Hall in Cork with an elaborate set of cubicles with electricity supplied to each, etc. In England, they see this as an emergency and they are using pews in cathedrals to get on with the job.

I have a final point. We need a clearer approach on using dentists, nurses, paramedics and pharmacists to administer vaccines. Injecting this vaccine is not a procedure that should be restricted at all. I wish the Minister every success in rolling out this programme. Get on with it, for God's sake, and deal with it as an emergency as we are in an economic, social, psychiatric and psychological emergency. Everyone must play their part.

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.