I greatly appreciate the opportunity to raise this issue. Next week the Government, on foot of NPHET recommendations, will make some very serious decisions. I do not want to engage in what some people have labelled as perhaps a shopping list of key issues but can we expect that those decisions, when they are made, will be clear and will provide a timeline beyond the next four weeks, something similar, or beyond that? We are very concerned that we do not go into another weekend of speculation and kite-flying from people in the media or in society. Rather, we want to arrive at a point on Tuesday when there is absolute clarity for society, where possible, for the next four weeks and a roadmap for the weeks beyond that.

I will speak on the same issue. Following on the comments of my colleague, Deputy Richmond, people are in many cases at breaking point with Covid-19 fatigue setting in. What will be the process on 5 April by which the Government will look at dealing with the reality when many people will be moving beyond level 5 by way of extending the limit from the 5 km, people being able to attend religious services and being able to click and collect? Will the Tánaiste be able to give clarity on this sooner rather than later?

There are a number of Deputies indicating and I ask them to be brief.

In the context of a commitment from a health Minister yesterday that he hopes that four in every five adults in Ireland can be vaccinated by the end of June and have at least one dose received based obviously on incoming suppliers, is it now time to begin moving the parameters whereby we establish or lift lockdown to something beyond infection rates or an R number, to reflect the fact that the risk associated with 500 cases, for example, last October and 500 cases right now is significantly different? We need to move to a more nuanced and sophisticated measurement of how exactly we react based on our vaccination rates as much as we are basing it on-----

This is the same topic and I ask the Deputy to be brief. I call Deputy Durkan.

Given that a continuous and adequate supply of vaccine is fundamental to the success of the fight against Covid-19, is the Tánaiste satisfied that adequate efforts are being made at European level to find alternative and continuous sources of the vaccine to replace those vaccine supplies that have not been fulfilled already?

There is an important set of decisions ahead for the Government in the next couple of days. Only two of the four metrics that we have discussed before are going in the right direction. It is important to be prudent yet and to acknowledge also vaccine progress, with 10% of the people having had the first vaccine dose. As the Government prepares its decisions, I ask the Tánaiste to look at two additional matters. One is the nuance that antigen testing can bring to how we enable people to get back out and to protect themselves at an infectious but asymptomatic stage. A further point that we might look at is when over 70-year-old citizens are fully vaccinated in the summer, can they have access to hospitality at an earlier stage to drive some revenue for hospitality and to provide a bonus for them to be able to get out sooner than might otherwise be the case?

We have an ideal opportunity to give some sort of hope to people next week. The roll-out is really shambolic on the vaccination side. I was speaking to doctors in Clonakilty and in Bantry last week and they were getting less than half of the vaccines that they were promised. We need to look at a county-by-county reopening because counties like Cork have one of the lowest rates. It has had 14 cases of Covid-19, which is 14 too many.

Next week being Holy Week is an opportunity for churches to reopen. Is the Government considering county-by-county reopening from next week, which is what the people are crying out for?

I attended an IBEC meeting this morning. The point was made that as the vaccines are being rolled out and based upon the progress made and milestones reached, we should see reopening of the economic sector to allow businesses to get back on their feet.

In addition to that, I also raise the very important issue of our cancer services. These services need to be urgently re-opened and should be working in tandem with the restrictions. I know that Professor O’Reilly, who is an oncologist, has raised very serious concerns. He states that for the next decade we are going to see a very high rate of deaths among cancer patients if we do not take urgent action. I appeal to the Tánaiste, being from the medical profession, please to advocate for the reopening of cancer services.

I thank the Deputies for their questions. We will give as much clarity and hope as we can on Tuesday. We will also need to be honest as we are not out of the woods yet. I am hopeful about the summer but the next couple of weeks are very worrying. The situation is deteriorating across Europe and appears to be deteriorating here as well. We will give people as much clarity as we can but we have seen on so many occasions that this virus rips up our plans. I do not want to give people assurances for six weeks’ time that we then have to withdraw in three weeks’ time, as that is not fair either.

On the risk profile question, this will change because of the vaccine but only 10% of people have received a shot now and it has not changed the risk profile enough at this stage. We really need to be up around 40% to 50% of people having received one vaccine before one would see that having a meaningful impact on the R number and we are not there yet.

On vaccine supply, I attended the European People’s Party, EPP, summit this morning and I engaged with President von der Leyen on this. She and we are doing everything we can to speed up supply in the second quarter of this year. It will speed up during this quarter and she is confident that we will have between 300 million and 360 million doses in the European Union in the second quarter of this year, that is in April, May and June. That is over 3 million doses, more than 1 million a month, coming to Ireland in that second quarter.

On testing, as I mentioned earlier, we are now extending PCR testing on demand to five parts of the country where there is a high incidence in Dublin and in Tullamore. A person does not need to go to a GP and can just drop in for a test. We are also going to see greater use of antigen testing, particularly in outbreaks and in workplaces.

We are not ready yet to treat different counties differently. Unfortunately, there is no county in Ireland at the moment where the incidence is low enough. Even where it is low it is five, ten, or 20 times what it was last summer.

Finally, on cancer services, as it is Daffodil Day tomorrow I want to thank Deputy Nolan for raising the issue of cancer services. I fully agree with her that we will do everything we can to get as many cancer services back up and running as soon as is possible. I fear secondary deaths as a consequence of this pandemic, that is people not dying of Covid-19 but from other conditions because they did not get the care that they needed during the pandemic.