Yes.

The copies are here, somewhere.

As stated, 66,000 doses were administered to the residents and staff of long-term residential care facilities and 77,000 doses to front-line healthcare workers. The HSE also commenced administration of the second dose of the vaccine last week in 27 nursing homes and in hospital groups. That work of administering second doses is being significantly stepped up this week. The presence of Covid-19 in a number of care facilities continues to be a challenge and has meant that some residents and staff could not be vaccina…

I thank the Deputy for that question. With regard to the plan, my understanding is that is exactly what we will get into now and I will certainly endeavour to provide any answers. That is what we are here for. Hopefully, the Deputy is still getting the daily updates as I asked that every Oireachtas Member would get a daily update on the vaccination programme. We are making a big effort to keep the Deputy and colleagues as updated as possible on a daily basis. If there is more that he would like or that he thinks th…

I was responding to the Deputy’s statement, which he will appreciate we should all be able to do. As he quite rightly said, the figure of 700,000 was an effort to provide in an indicative target for the Oireachtas and it was, as he rightly referred to, heavily caveated and remains so. As the Deputy will recall from our interactions last week, I said that if we get the supply that has been tentatively agreed with the pharmaceutical companies, including AstraZeneca - remember both last week when we were discussing th…

I am trying to answer that question for the Deputy. The figure of 700,000 was conditional on supply coming in, including from AstraZeneca. As we are all aware, AstraZeneca has, very frustratingly, signalled that it will not deliver the full amount that was anticipated. Of the 700,000, which referred to people rather than doses, included in that-----

I am trying to answer the Deputy’s question. Included in that was an assumption for AstraZeneca of just a little bit less than 600,000 doses. Right now, the company is not committing to that 600,000 and we are in negotiations to see what we can get. The 700,000 figure is contingent on the supply that comes in, which is still under negotiation with the company.

At the moment the conversation and negotiation is still ongoing and quite a robust set of meetings are taking place between the Commission and the company, and the relevant officials are also in touch with the company, including from Ireland. At the moment, Ireland or any other EU state, or indeed the Commission, cannot say what the final agreed amount for the first quarter up to the end of March will be.

I fully appreciate that I am being asked exactly the same questions. The answer is the same as last week. There is not a single cohort we can point to. Perhaps this is part of what needs further explanation. The clinical judgement from the HSE, as the Deputy said, is that those in the formal caring sector are in cohort 2 and that family carers as a group are not in any individual cohort. Different carers who are in different positions themselves may fall into different cohorts, based on age, for example, and so for…

On the first question regarding disability settings, what has been done so far and the target for last Sunday was that residents aged over 65 both in the mental health and disability long-term care settings would be vaccinated. That is being done. They are moving now on to the vaccination of the staff both in the mental health and the disability sector and this is happening this week. As to dentists, there has not been an agreement as to vaccination with them. I have asked the Department to put such an agreement in…

I will have to check whether the Moderna vaccine came in this week or last week because it is coming in every second week. The initial weeks for Pfizer was an agreement-----

The initial agreement with Pfizer was for just less than 41,000, I think. However, we have been able to extract a sixth dose. That was based on five doses per vial. The best information I have from the HSE at the moment is in the weekly amounts coming from Pfizer we should be able to extract approximately-----

Approximately 48,000 arrived from Pfizer, if we get the sixth dose out.

Regarding updates on the volume of people, those figures are being provided. I will get the Deputy the information that has gone around but-----

They are provided publicly by the HSE. I have the figures to hand, but I will make sure the Deputy gets them. Regarding the healthcare workers, Deputy Kelly is right that I made that commitment to Deputy Duncan Smith. The HSE is working on that issue and as soon as I have the information, I will make it available to all Members.

I will start at the end. I agree fully that there are older residential settings which do not come under the nursing home group, so they would not naturally fall into cohort 1. Most of them will come into cohort 2, which includes those people aged over 70 years old. We are starting with those over 85 years of age. We were only discussing this topic with the HSE this week to see what could be done, because, regarding the Deputy's point, there is a higher risk of contagion among a group of older people. I thank the D…

Do we have the full five minutes?

I will respond to Deputy Murnane O'Connor in writing regarding those questions I do not get a chance to cover. Regarding the position with AstraZeneca, the European Commission is in active and pretty robust conversations with that company. Neither the Commission nor the company has yet been able to provide a firm delivery schedule for the second half of March. We are waiting on that timeline. Many Deputies are very fairly raising the issue of family carers. Deputy Murnane O'Connor referred to members of the Garda a…

I wholeheartedly endorse and echo the Deputy's praise of the nursing homes and for those working in the nursing homes. I add my thanks to the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, who is taking the lead on nursing homes, and who is doing a fantastic job and working very closely with the nursing home sector to ensure that it gets whatever help we can give it. This is a really tough situation. Many nursing home staff are out of work because of Covid-19, either directly or indirectly. A bit of hopeful news is that the num…

I will get back to the Deputy with a detailed note. Regarding the daily updates, the Deputy should be receiving them. I have asked for that for every Member, so I will follow that up immediately.