Paddy Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. I received my vaccination at the Breaffy House complex. It was a massive success and worked like clockwork. The staff were brilliant, there were no problems, no time waiting and it was a great success all round.

In 1928, Michael Collins's sister, Margaret Collins-O'Driscoll, had to speak against her own party in support of vaccination against smallpox, a disease which inflicted terrible misery on Irish people at the time. She spoke eloquently about vaccination at the time. Some people who are anti-vaccines should read what she said. I support the case for community pharmacists. Some people feel very comfortable going into their local pharmacist and it is an issue the Minister should look at.

Questions were asked about AstraZeneca and whether the timeframe for the second jab will be shortened. If it could be, it would facilitate many people, especially those who might want to travel and go on holiday.

I ask the Minister about the State and whether, as a nation, we have failed the Irish people on records and the holding of records. In the Department of Social Protection many people came up against the social welfare card. Did the Minister's Department have proper records of the age profile of people who were going to be vaccinated? When former Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Phil Hogan, tried to introduce a property tax, his Department had no records. No local authority or Department could tell him how many houses were in the country or who had septic tanks and so forth. The Department had to get all those records.