My point is that we need to hear from the Minister.

We need an update from him. I object very seriously to what is happening.

At the outset, I must express my complete dissatisfaction at the way the Minister has dealt with his speaking slot this morning. The whole purpose of this session is that he be accountable to Members with regard to the vaccine programme. That is the purpose of these sessions every Thursday morning. It is entirely unacceptable that the Minister would give away more than half of his time to a Government backbencher. I put it to him that this is not accountability, it is avoiding accountability. We need a ruling from …

They are weekly.

Will the Minister commit to providing the figures before the weekend?

The Minister said earlier that it is his intention that every citizen would be vaccinated by September. Maybe he will clarify that. He presumably meant every resident as opposed to every citizen. On the target date for completing vaccinations in nursing homes, the Minister had set a target for the first jab and then the second jab. It is unlikely that those target dates will be met so have new target dates for the completion of both rounds been set? I refer to the unfortunate incidents we saw in which the order of …

Is that a significant number at this stage?

Will there be sanctions if it happens again in the future?

Will there be any sanctions?

How long was the slot to be?

There was no clock for-----

As a point of information, there was no clock on for five minutes and then a further seven minutes were given.

As we all know, the situation in the hospitals is on a knife-edge. We also know that we have currently got exceptionally high daily case numbers. It is very important that there is a recognition of the reason we have got to this point. There has to be a recognition that many of the decisions that were taken in the lead-up to Christmas were high-risk decisions that have put the country at serious risk because unless we do that, we will not learn from those mistakes. We had a situation where the Government was claimi…

As the Minister has heard from all sides of the House, there is a huge gap in information on vaccines and the public is crying out for that information. The quicker we can provide that information and the more clarity that can be brought, the better for everybody. I want to ask the Minister if he will commit to providing a number of pieces of information on vaccines. I fully accept that it is a fluid situation but will the Minister set out the current expectation and then that can be amended on a week-to-week basis…

What about registration?

Yes.

Has the IT system been sorted out? Is that ready?

I look forward to getting that information. In relation to healthcare staff, they are all under enormous pressure at present. They are doing incredible work in extraordinarily difficult circumstances. There are two particular areas where they need the Minister's support. The first is in relation to public health doctors. Traditionally, they have been very badly treated in this country. They have been campaigning and have been made promises that their status would be upgraded. It is the only specialty that does not …

With all due respect, there is vast amounts of money going into call centres privatising elements of this service. It is the public health doctors who are the people who know how to do the proper tracing and who know how to manage staff in that regard. Can the Minister give us a date when those promises will be delivered on?

On behalf of the Social Democrats, I wish the Ceann Comhairle, all Members and all Oireachtas staff a happy and restful Christmas. It has been a rough year for everybody and that includes everybody associated with the Houses of the Oireachtas. Let us hope for better times in 2021. I raise with the Tánaiste an interview Mr. Paul Reid did on the "This Week" programme last Sunday. He was asked about a contract worth €14 million that the HSE had entered into for ventilators. It seems there were serious problems with th…