Shingles Vaccination Programme: Motion
Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-05
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Martin Conway (IND), Administrative Panel

I welcome the Minister of State. It is good to see her again. I commend Senator Joe Conway on moving the motion on this very important topic. I speak as someone who has campaigned over the past number of years with regard to vaccines in general. I was front and centre during the Covid pandemic in encouraging people to avail of vaccines. I have always supported and spoken out very strongly on the need for people to take the flu vaccine, especially those who are vulnerable but also people in general. Vaccines work and have been proven to work.
The late Laura Brennan campaigned in respect of the human papillomavirus, HPV, vaccine. She spoke here many times. She encouraged and lobbied the Government and welcomed its decision to expand the availability of the HPV vaccine. There was a catch-up programme where if somebody did not avail of it, for whatever reason, in their early days at second level and parents subsequently wanted their children to avail of it, the cost was something like €800. After much lobbying by Laura Brennan's family, the Irish Cancer Society and others, the Government agreed that it be made available free of charge.
I see the motion as an extension of that good health practice. We in Ireland are lucky that cynicism and people being sceptical about vaccines is very low in comparison with other countries. When we look at what is happening across the pond in America regarding vaccines, where they are absolutely not being encouraged at all, we can see that we are very fortunate that our citizens believe the science and the word of the experts and that they take vaccines. Against that backdrop, it makes absolute sense that we should be making this vaccine available free of charge and encouraging as many people as possible to avail of it.
If HIQA is given terms of reference and comes back with a report to the effect that doing this does not represent value for money and that the money could be spent better in other areas, we can point out that this argument can be made in respect of so many aspects of life. A couple of years ago, we eliminated the €80-a-day charge for the first ten days people are in hospital. It could be argued that some people can afford to pay that charge, some people should pay it and so on. I really do not believe that is an argument for not doing something. The greater good, as Senators Clonan, Ahearn and others stated, needs to be taken into consideration. We are a first world country. We aspire to having a top-class health service. In many areas, we do have a top-class health service. However, access to a vaccine should not be denied because of money. Certainly, access to something that will prevent an illness from happening should not be determined because of money.
Not only should we be providing what Senator Conway is looking for - and I am glad the Government is not opposing the motion, because that is a very important first step in this process - we should also be looking at making other vaccines available.
We should be a country where, if people are prepared to take a vaccine, we would move heaven and earth to give them as many vaccines as we possibly can. I have known people who have suffered greatly from shingles. I know older people who have suffered a lot and then get shingles and suffer a whole lot more. It is protracted and lasts a long time. I put it to the Minister of State that as a society we should be engaging in preventative mechanisms in every way we can. I often talk about people going and getting their eyes checked on a regular basis. For four out of every five people who suffer sight loss in this country it is preventable if it is caught in time. We need to really embrace preventative medicine and ways of preventing sickness and illness. Vaccines is a no-brainer. As I said, when we have a population who are not sceptical about vaccines we should be embracing that and we should be making them available.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-02-05/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:35+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-05