Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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1364. To ask the Minister for Health if there are plans to transition the current Covid-19 vaccine roll-out programme from being administered at vaccine centres to being solely administered through pharmacies and GPs in order to best utilise the healthcare budget and staffing resources being used to run current vaccination centres; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16405/23]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The Covid Vaccination Programme is based on the advice of the National Immunisation Advisory Committee (NIAC). The Committee's recommendations are based on the prevalence of the relevant disease in Ireland and international best practices in relation to immunisation. The NIAC reviews all data relating to COVID-19 vaccination on a rolling basis and makes recommendations to my Department on vaccination policy.

The Chief Medical Officer (CMO) has written to the HSE to request that it operationalises the latest NIAC recommendations as soon as practicable. As we enter the fourth year of the pandemic it is necessary that the Vaccination Programme continues to transition towards a more sustainable model of vaccine delivery. The CMO has therefore also requested that the HSE take appropriate steps to ensure that the programme's capacity corresponds to the scale of vaccination recommended by the NIAC.