Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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800. To ask the Minister for Health the capacity available to administer the Covid-19 vaccine as one million doses per month are received; and if there is a contingency plan to scale up capacity if more doses become available. [12739/21]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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As this is a service matter, I have asked the Health Service Executive to respond to the deputy directly, as soon as possible.

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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801. To ask the Minister for Health his views on the Austrian led First-Movers vaccination group. [12740/21]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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Ireland is participating in a Procurement Exercise being operated by the European Commission on behalf of Member States to procure suitable, safe and effective vaccines, in sufficient quantities, to combat COVID-19. Six APAs have been negotiated by the Commission under this process to date.

Government approval has been obtained to opt-into a sixth, but this is conditional on certain trial progression criteria being met.

Ireland has opted-in to pro rata allocation of BioNTech / Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. Ireland has also secured additional doses of the BioNTech / Pfizer vaccine via options and top up contracts, which will bring the current total of BioNTech / Pfizer doses secured to approximately 6.5 million doses. Ireland has also signalled interest in obtaining 1.64 million additional doses of the Moderna vaccine. Ireland now expects to receive a total of 1.1 million doses of the three approved vaccines (Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca) from the start of the vaccination programme to the end of March.

Ireland has signalled its solidarity with the EU approach and has, through its participation, gained access to a broad range of vaccines that it might not otherwise have access to, and at the cost agreed collectively by the EU.