There are 500,000 family carers in this State. They provide 19 million unpaid caring hours per week and they save the State €20 billion every year. They do their work looking after vulnerable loved ones with compassion and love and their value is immeasurable. The challenges and the risks they face during the pandemic have increased dramatically.

I want the Taoiseach to listen to the words of Mike Molloy who cares for his mother who suffers from Parkinson’s:

I'm part of an army of hundreds of thousands of people in this country, the forgotten frontline if you like; who do what they do because of the most basic and yet the most beautiful of human emotions, Love. I am a Family Carer!

We may care for different people. In my case it's my elderly mother who suffers from Parkinson's but even though the condition or vulnerability of the person we love is different, our daily lives are similar. From early morning to late at night we ensure that the person we love is well and safe.

This is challenging at any time but the pandemic has made it nearly impossible. The gripping fear we have of the virus somehow managing to slip into our homes through the only few activities...grocery shopping and pharmacy deliveries, that we can and must partake in, is huge.

We live largely like prisoners under some form of house arrest with people for whom the consequence of Covid can easily be serious illness or even death.

Mike goes on to express the heartache and anger felt by family carers at not being given a place in the vaccine roll-out queue. He powerfully outlines the reason why this needs to happen. It is something my colleague, Deputy Cullinane, has raised with the Minister for Health on a number of occasions. The Minister, Deputy Donnelly, has announced that the vaccine allocation groups are to be reconfigured and it is absolutely essential that family carers are given their place as part of this reconfiguration.

The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health has unanimously agreed to write to the National Immunisation Advisory Committee on prioritising family carers for the vaccine because family carers are front-line health workers and deserve to be recognised as such. Carers employed by the HSE are included in the rollout and it only makes sense that family carers are given their place too.

Indeed, family carers have been prioritised for vaccination, as the Taoiseach knows, in the North. It is high time that we followed suit.

We have all had a tough year, but family carers have walked a particularly hard road during this pandemic. I held a meeting with hundreds of them last week and they told me that the prospect of the vaccine is the light at the end of a long and dark tunnel. They said that it was like a punch in the stomach to be told that they would have to wait to be vaccinated along with the general population. They feel their lives and the clear risks they face do not matter.

Yesterday the Taoiseach referred to the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and described it as a "game changer". Today, I am asking for a game changer for family carers. This means ensuring they are prioritised for vaccination. I ask the Taoiseach to give family carers the certainty they need and to confirm that they will have a place on the priority list to be vaccinated.

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. I have received very moving correspondence from Mike Molloy. As Deputy McDonald said, he wrote the moving piece about a year trapped in fear. It brilliantly and emotionally captured the enormous stress and strain being felt by family carers and those who care for their loved ones, which in Mike's case is his mother who has Parkinson's disease. Obviously, because of Covid-19 and the ease with which it spreads, those carers must be extremely careful in their lives so that they do not in any way inadvertently spread Covid-19 to their loved ones. The mobility of those carers is impacted. The fear that their loved ones for whom they care will contract the virus is one they live with daily. I empathise fully with the plight that Mike Molloy has articulated and conveyed so eloquently. I share many of the sentiments which he articulated in that article in respect of the need for a global approach to vaccination and his hope that the election of President Biden will in itself bring a greater unity of purpose among the global community in that regard.

Regarding the Irish context, Deputy McDonald knows the national immunisation advisory committee, NIAC, has given clinical advice on the cohorts and the sequencing of who is to get the vaccine first. The first group included residents of nursing homes, the staff in nursing homes and front-line healthcare workers and that is where we directed the volume of vaccines we got in quarter 1, particularly the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which was key. The vaccines went to that cohort. It is now being administered to those aged over 85 years old.

The Minister for Health has written to NIAC regarding re-examining that cohort and the sequencing of vaccination for those contained in the group. My understanding is that NIAC will be responding to that query today regarding sequencing those people who in its view should be prioritised for vaccinations. The overwhelming clinical view has been that senior citizens should be the first to be vaccinated because they are the most vulnerable. Equally, however, the Minister and the Government have put that request to NIAC to consider the situation, because we are of the view that those who are immunosuppressed or have particular conditions, like Parkinson's disease and cystic fibrosis, should be prioritised. Clearly, if those people contracted the virus they would be more vulnerable to severe illness and potential mortality. We are awaiting the response from NIAC in that regard, and then the Government will consider further the sequencing and order in which vaccines will be administered.

At the moment we are still very much dependent on volumes of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for the cohort of those aged over 70 years old, in addition to low volumes of supplies of the Moderna vaccine. The AstraZeneca vaccine is being used for the remainder of the front-line healthcare workers to be vaccinated. That is where we are right now. The volumes will increase significantly in quarter 2 and we are awaiting authorisation of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. I understand that may happen sooner than was originally envisaged, which would give us considerable hope. I am not using the word "game changer" any more. I used a different word as Gaeilge last night to suggest that life should change with the higher volumes of vaccines coming in and that we should be able to deal in a more timely manner with the many people in the situation of Mike's mother who need a vaccine.

Family carers are among the forgotten people during this pandemic. We must remember they carry out the work they do with little support, and in some cases with no support from the Government. The work they do is unseen. It is hidden away in the privacy of their family homes and they do not get to clock in and out. It is a 24-7. It is a commitment undertaken day in, day out and it is done with a spirit of love and care, as I am sure family carers have told the Taoiseach. The risk they face during this pandemic is enormous. It is just unacceptable that they have been forgotten again and have been left with the general population for vaccination as and when it is possible. That is wrong. I put it to the Taoiseach that NIAC is wrong to have left family carers in that position. As Head of Government, what does the Taoiseach propose to do about this situation? Does he agree that family carers must be recognised and that they need to be given their place of priority in the roll-out of this vaccine?

I genuinely regret the politically-charged manner in which the Deputy is presenting this issue. I did not think that the Dáil on its own was going to decide on who gets vaccinated first, in a political way. To juxtapose the vaccination programme so far with suggesting that 500,000 people are the "forgotten people" is wrong. No one here wants to forget anybody regarding vaccination. The Government's agenda is to vaccinate as many people as quickly as we possibly can, which is dependent on getting the requisite volumes of vaccines into the country. That is our objective, like everybody else's in this House. I am not forgetting anybody in respect of vaccination. I do not think that charge should be made. There can be wider political issues around supports for carers, and the Government has provided a whole range of supports for carers.

Regarding the vaccination programme, however, of course we want to vaccinate those who have been prioritised on medical and age grounds. Why? We want to do that because the vaccines prevent severe illness and mortality. The evidence base so far from doctors and public health clinicians is that senior citizens in nursing homes should be first and then the front-line healthcare workers dealing with Covid-19 in their daily interactions on the front line. Regarding many cases, we have said to NIAC to reconsider the cohort. We have formally written to it regarding those people with conditions and those who are more vulnerable to falling victim to the virus in terms of severe illness or mortality.