There are so many problems with the vaccine roll-out that it is hard to know where to start. We learned from a meeting of a certain parliamentary party that despite the assurances that we would have 1 million vaccines rolled out in April, the number will, in fact, be just over 800,000. We were told that mandatory hotel quarantine is to be extended. Now, we understand there is no such agreement at Cabinet and, indeed, there are legal difficulties in that regard. This morning, it is reported that the Tánaiste told the Fine Gael Parliamentary Party that the list of workers who would receive priority vaccination was never defined. I am sure he is not sticking with that story because I have to hand a press release issued by the Minister for Health, which clearly defines who was supposed to get the vaccine. It refers to key workers in essential jobs who cannot avoid high risk of exposure, including workers in the food supply system, public and commercial transport and other vital services. It goes on to mention "those who are essential to education and who face disease exposure - primary and second level school staff, special needs assistants, childcare workers, maintenance workers, school bus drivers etc."

We are over time. The Tánaiste to respond.

Those groups were all defined. Does the Tánaiste understand that there is anger now because people look at what has happened as a breach of a commitment? Does he acknowledge that the Government has broken its commitment to those employees at this point in time?

I ask Deputies to co-operate with the time restrictions to allow as many people as possible to speak.

I absolutely acknowledge that there are many people who are annoyed or disappointed because they felt they were going to be prioritised for vaccination. Whether it was an assumption or an assurance they were given, many people believed they were going to be prioritised. It did not only apply to gardaí or teachers. The list mentioned by the Deputy could probably extend to hundreds of thousands of people who believed they would be prioritised. However, we have to do what is best for society as a whole. The advice from the national immunisation advisory committee, NIAC, the National Public Health Emergency Team, NPHET, doctors, experts and scientists is clear. It is that a profession-based approach would be slower, would mean opening up society more slowly, would be more complicated to implement and, crucially, would be wrong in terms of medical ethics. This is because people in their 50s and 60s, regardless of their profession, are at more risk than people in their 30s and 40s. That is why we have to prioritise people in their 50s and 60s using an aged-based cohort, just like what is being done in Northern Ireland.

I am going to stick to the time so that Members get in.

At the NPHET briefing yesterday, we learned that modelling showed that if there was a moderate increase in close contacts from 5 April to 30 September, we would have 578,000 cases or 9,500 cases per day. This is a mathematical equation and I understand that NPHET is simply doing its job. However, the Tánaiste is saying that 3.8 million people will have some form of vaccination by the end of June and that everyone will be vaccinated by September. Did the predictions modelled yesterday include anything about the fact that the Government is saying people will be vaccinated? Why is that not part of the modelling? Should the modelling not factor in vaccinations? If this is not modelled under the equation I have outlined, why not? Will the Tánaiste ask NPHET to do so? The public are wondering how these figures could be projected if such numbers of vaccinations are to be administered.

My understanding is that the modelling done by NPHET and Professor Nolan does factor in our projections in respect of vaccination. The difficulty we have at the moment is that not enough people are vaccinated. Whereas vaccinating all those over 70 years reduces the number of deaths dramatically, it does not reduce the number of ICU admissions dramatically. That is why we need to vaccinate people in their 50s and 60s as well.

The modelling is out to September not May. How could NPHET not have factored that in? Many more people will be vaccinated by then.

We anticipate that everyone who wants to be vaccinated will be fully vaccinated by the end of September.

How will there be more than 15,000 cases a day?

Please speak through the Chair, Deputy Kelly.

These are probably questions for Professor Nolan rather than me. Vaccinations will not be 100% effective. There will still be cases.

The most recent guidelines relating to the ongoing restrictions in maternity hospitals date back to September. Since then there have been significant changes, including that front-line healthcare workers have been vaccinated. The Taoiseach told me back in September that there needs to be and should be a national approach to this. Of course, it should never have been a geographical lottery. In early December, the HSE reclassified partners as an essential accompanying person for the 20-week scan. Incredibly, partners have somehow become unessential for the later scans and most of labour. Earlier today, the Minister for Health said that it was now up to each individual hospital. What exactly is the policy on this? It seems the policy is simply for the Government to wash its hands of it. Over three months ago, the UK changed its policy to allow expectant mothers to have someone with them at all stages of their maternity journey. It is unfathomable that this was not addressed this week along with other issues such as sports. It seems much like the importance of children's shoes. Despite the number of times I have raised the matter, it has been ignored.

It is a little strange for a spokesperson from a party that had been advocating very low Covid or zero Covid to then start lining up calls this week, last week and the week before for restrictions to be eased.

I am not calling for restrictions to be eased. I am talking about where front-line healthcare workers are vaccinated.

Deputy, you are now using-----

Zero Covid is-----

There are Members waiting to ask a question. I have a list of more than 27 names. Perhaps the Tánaiste could respond.

I may have misunderstood the Deputy's question. If I did, I apologise. I thought she was referring to unvaccinated visitors.

A man is not a visitor at the birth of his child.

I am sorry. With the interaction-----

We all want to see these restrictions eased. We all want people who are having a baby to have someone there to support them. We want fathers to be able to be there for appointments - of course we do. However, bringing unvaccinated people into a hospital is a risk and there have been miscarriages as a result of Covid.

There is no point in continuing because other Members will not get in if the Deputy does not comply. I know each issue is very important.

Two days ago, public health officials requested that the USA, Germany and 41 other countries be added to the list for mandatory hotel quarantine. This is in order to prevent dangerous Covid variants from entering the country. We still have not heard if or when this is going to happen. Instead, we have the corporate lobbyists, IBEC, out pushing for this public health advice to be ignored because of its impact from a "business and investment reputational perspective". It seems those in IBEC believe the desire of billionaire chief executives to jet in and out without quarantining should outweigh the public health advice.

We know that quarantine works. Even with the tiny amount of quarantining now being implemented, we have found positive cases that otherwise would have come in. However, it should not be a measure that is limited to a small minority of travellers coming from Africa or South America. We need to stop all non-essential travel into the country and ensure proper quarantining for those who arrive.

I do not think this is about billionaires flying in on private jets. That is just a conspiracy theory. This is about hundreds of thousands of Irish citizens who live in the US and France and hundreds of thousands of EU citizens who live here but call places like Poland home.

The situation is that consultations are now under way, as is required under the legislation, about extending mandatory hotel quarantine to more countries. It will be extended to more countries. I cannot tell the Deputy now exactly when or exactly which ones but consultation is now under way about that.

Part of the advice is not only about keeping variants out. It is about extending mandatory quarantine to countries where we are not concerned about the variants but where there is a high incidence of Covid. Certain things have to be worked out. Do we have the hotels to do this properly? What is the legal position in respect of the common travel area and the rights of European citizens to free movement? What is the exit strategy? Covid will exist in the world forever. There will be variants, probably forever. Will we have mandatory hotel quarantine forever? There are many things that need to be considered on foot of this advice.

To go back to the issue of Covid and the roll-out of vaccines, there is a cohort of 3,000 people who are housebound. The National Ambulance Service is rolling out the vaccine to them. However, there is a complete lack of communication on what counties will be done and when. Many people have contacted me, including those from families of affected older people. A woman in my town is 105 years old. The family is worried about when she will get her vaccine. Can the Tánaiste communicate to general practitioners so they can indicate to their patients in what week, indicatively even, each of the counties will be done? In that way, these 3,000 people will know when they will be done. It is causing extreme concern, frustration and anxiety for the families and the people in question. They deserve better.

The vast majority of people aged over 80 have already been vaccinated. We are moving on to those in their 70s at the moment. Indeed, that is well under way in some parts of the country. This can be complicated. Some people are housebound and others are in isolated areas where it is difficult to get to. Arrangements are being put in place using general practitioners and the National Ambulance Service to get to people who are housebound or isolated. I will follow up the matter the Deputy has raised because it is an important point. If he wishes to give me a particular example, I would be happy to follow it up with the HSE.

In a reply to my parliamentary question this morning I was told that 36,820 people were waiting for a colonoscopy. There has been a 59% increase in the number of people waiting for scopes since the start of the pandemic. These are shocking figures. The Tánaiste talks in reams about vaccines and everything else but this is a cancer growing inside people. Many people will die. Probably more will die from it than will die from Covid. It is shocking. I have asked for figures on the number of people who have become seriously ill. It is truly shocking. No effort is being made to deal with it. The hospitals are closed to people. Covid has consumed everything. It is shocking that this is left to carry on. Our health service was bad before but it is shocking now that people have to wait for such basic tests. People are dying and will die as a result of it.

I thank the Deputy. As a consequence Covid-19 and the need to pare back non-Covid-19 health services in order to keep people out of hospitals where they might pick up the virus, we have seen a very significant increase in waiting lists for colonoscopies and oesophago-gastro-duodenoscopy procedures. It is important to say that when somebody has the frank symptoms of cancer they are, of course, prioritised. As is often the case with cancer, however, sometimes people’s symptoms are not frank and obvious and that can result in delayed diagnosis. Only last week, the HSE published a very detailed plan as to how it is going to restore non-Covid-19 services and do so in a step-wise fashion over the course of the next few months. That is why it is so important that we keep the virus under control and keep driving the numbers down because if we have a fourth wave, that will further impact on other services.