Vaccination Programme Dail Éireann — 2026-03-04 ============================================================ Mary Butler (FF), Waterford I understand the points the Deputy makes. I agree with many of them but we must stop and think. He says the vaccine would cost €500 per person. We have an ageing population. We actually have more than a million people over 65. The Deputy can quickly do the maths to see what that would cost. Following detailed consideration of the findings of the HTA in 2024, it was determined that the introduction of the shingles vaccine to the immunisation schedule in Ireland could be considered if and when the cost-effectiveness of the vaccine is confirmed as being more favourable. I think there is an onus, too, on the companies that provide the vaccine to come to the table. That is an important element of it. In line with this, the introduction of the shingles vaccine to the immunisation programme in Ireland is again being actively considered for a cohort of immunocompromised individuals in line with NIAC advice and cognisant of the cost-effectiveness of market pricing and available funding, so that is welcome. The Deputy will also be aware that the immunisation programme in Ireland is based on the advice of NIAC. The information I have, and I have no doubt they looked at it for those aged 50 and the whole way up, is that the HTA found that vaccinations could be cost effective for those aged 75 and 80 if the price of the vaccine was reduced by 80%. I will certainly raise this again with the Minister for Health. It is kept under constant review. As I said, €4 billion, which is a huge proportion of the overall spend of our health budget, is spent on medicines. We will keep the situation under constant review and I will speak to the Minister on the Deputy's behalf. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-03-04/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:43+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-03-04