The roll-out to individual hospital groups, as I am sure the Deputy will acknowledge, is an operational matter. There is no political involvement whatsoever in how many doses go to different parts of the country. They are operational decisions. I asked the HSE the exact question posed by the Deputy and was told that to begin with, the HSE contacted the hospital groups and asked how ready they were and how much could they take. The initial amount dispersed was done on that basis, and then they immediately moved to a…

I wholeheartedly agree on the value that home helps in west Cork and around the country provide every day. I am happy to confirm that the clinical decision is that the formal carers sector, which includes the people the Deputy mentions, are included in cohort 2. That is very important. On when exactly those in different groups in different counties or parts of counties will receive the vaccine, there is an operational schedule in place for each hospital group which the hospital groups are managing according to a pr…

I thank the Deputy for the question. My understanding is that this came from research out of the UK where they were looking at the reinfection rates of healthcare workers who had it. It was suggesting that a large amount of protection was afforded if one had had it and the suggestion was being made in the UK that that might be something that can be examined. I have discussed it with the Chief Medical Officer, CMO. He is looking into it in detail. The current position, however, is that it is not one of the factors. …

No. I am happy to cede that time to the two Ministers of State.

I welcome the opportunity to address the House on student nurses and midwives. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all nurses and midwives, and indeed all healthcare workers, for their dedication and commitment as we continue to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic. I begin by noting that nursing and midwifery have been graduate professions in Ireland since 2004. It is important to focus on the benefits of our undergraduate nursing and midwifery programme, which is second to none. This degree-level programme …

I will share time with the Ministers of State, Deputies Butler, Feighan and Rabbitte. I thank the Ceann Comhairle for the opportunity to update the House on the national response to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Deputies will all be aware of the significant decisions taken by Government in the past few weeks regarding the new measures put in place to combat Covid-19. I would like to share with the House why these decisions were made. The epidemiological situation has deteriorated substantially in recent weeks. The…

In answering the question, there is nothing that I or the HSE would like to do more than to be able to say "Here is our week-by-week allocation. Here is what is coming in, here is what is coming in month by month and here is how that feeds into all the various priority groups" and then to be able to put up a simple calculator or drop a document into homes which would give people, in light of their individual profiles and attributes, such as age, underlying conditions, etc., the date on which they are scheduled to b…

I thank the Deputies for the questions. I assure them that the vaccination task force and the HSE share the frustration behind the questions. Everyone here is representing their constituents and the questions people are asking them. I will lay out for Deputy Farrell what we know. We know that on Sunday week, our target is to have vaccinated 140,000 people. That is split 50:50 between long-term residential care and front-line healthcare workers. In long-term residential care, it is the entire nursing home sector. Th…

For most people, that includes both doses, but the Deputy will appreciate that there will be a three-week gap. For those we start reaching in the last three weeks of March, their second doses will spill into weeks 1, 2 and 3 of April.

Our assumptions might not all come to pass, but to give people a sense of what might be possible, we are assuming that the AstraZeneca vaccine will be authorised on 29 January and that we will begin to get amounts of it quickly. We are planning on several hundred thousand doses within quarter 1. Although it might not come to pass, we are also planning on the number of weekly Pfizer doses increasing, albeit not by vast amounts. This would include the additional opt-in.

Of the 300 million, the EU has confirmed the first 200 million. Yesterday, the Cabinet agreed to buy into that. We will get 1.1% of it. It will be the third tranche, as it were. There was the original Pfizer amount under the advanced purchase agreement, APA, and we got an additional amount through an opt-in. What was agreed yesterday was a third amount. Under the schedule we have, that amount will begin to arrive in quarter 2. I will get the Deputy and other colleagues the breakdown of the amounts in quarters 2 and…

I have asked my Department to look into exactly that. The CMO and I had that conversation this week. It is what I want to see. The UK did it, including in Northern Ireland. The doses were in GPs' surgeries and they were able to start vaccinating the moment the vaccine was authorised. Since the vaccine is manufactured in the UK, we can get it into Ireland very quickly. As such, the additional time we would get to vaccinate would not be much, but I agree that if we can save a day here or there, we should do so. I hav…

Will I write to the Deputy?

Will the Deputy clarify which screening services she is referencing?

Urgent non-Covid care is being kept open, including referral clinics for urgent cancer care and urgent screening. The situation the Deputy described sounds distressing. I have no doubt that the clinicians involved would not want that to happen. Unfortunately, with the system under this level of pressure, they are probably having to make decisions that they normally would not. We need to encourage people to stay at home, continue reducing the number of cases and give the hospital system the space it needs.

I thank the Deputy. I acknowledge his strong and ongoing position on travel measures. As he will be aware, we had a full travel ban between Britain, South Africa and here. That has now been changed. There were two steps. The first was to bring in a mandatory requirement for a clear or negative PCR test up to 72 hours before travel. On top of that, critically, when a person travels here, all the same measures are still in place. It does not replace them. Therefore, a person coming from Britain and South Africa still…

I will contact the HPSC today on that, absolutely.

I thank the Deputy. On critical care and ICUs, she is absolutely correct. The hospital system is under severe pressure. It will get worse before it gets better. We know it will get better because we are beginning to see the effect of the measures in place. We are beginning to see the cases go down but it is essential we maintain that at a tight level so that they go down as fast as possible. That is how we will help our healthcare workers the most. Regarding the numbers in critical care, there were 255 critical car…

I join wholeheartedly with the Deputy in his support of the staff and healthcare professionals in Letterkenny University Hospital. They dealt with the serious pressure point they had and which we were all watching within a matter of hours. Donegal has done well. As the Deputy noted, the figures were right at the top of the county table recently. As for the figures I have been sent for today since we have been sitting here, the rate is now very slightly below the national average. It is now mid-table and coming down…

On current expectation, I want to provide as much information as possible for the same reason that we all want that information. We only have two authorised vaccines. We are looking to put in place figures that are reasonable as quickly as possible. There are ongoing conversations with the pharmaceutical companies and figures are moving around a lot but I take the Deputy's point. On the different cohorts, I will provide Deputies with the numbers in each cohort this evening. On weekly figures for vaccinations and de…