Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Let us talk about the Beacon Hospital for a moment. What happened there was completely unacceptable. There is no excuse whatsoever for what happened. It was clearly against the agreed protocols and the entire ethos of our vaccination programme, which is to vaccinate the most vulnerable first. We do that because we want to minimise the damage this virus can do to our country. By vaccinating the most vulnerable first, as well as our healthcare workers who take care of those who get sick, we minimise the risk, maximise the benefit of the vaccination programme and speed up our ability to open back up again. Some may say that what happened at the Beacon only involved 20 doses in a pool of 800,000 that have been administered. I do not accept that. It is not about the 20 doses, it is about the signal it sent out.