I agree with the Taoiseach on the importance of people getting the booster. I received mine about ten days ago. In the same week it was announced walk-ins would be accommodated. People in the queue I was in at Citywest were being told only people with appointments would receive a booster. The wait that day was about three and a half hours. The following day it was five hours. Cork City Hall and Croke Park were also reporting long queues. It is, therefore, understandable people would make appointments with their pharmacy instead. Yesterday, the Taoiseach said that in the week commencing 22 November, there were 208,000 appointments for boosters but only 80,000 people turned up and last week there were 180,000 appointments but only 93,000 people turned up. The obvious question that arises is why there were approximately 30,000 fewer appointments last week than the previous week. Yesterday the Taoiseach failed to mention the ongoing problems with the booking system. Eligible people can now get boosters from their GPs, pharmacies or, indeed, a vaccination centre. The only problem is the systems do not seem to be capable of talking to each other. People in the eligible groups for a booster but who have had Covid in the past six months, which makes them ineligible, are still getting appointments. Is the system capable of picking that up? Instead of blaming people for not turning up to their appointments will the Taoiseach tell us what is being done to resolve the problems with the bookings system?

This is especially important given that appointments for the over-50s are coming on stream tomorrow and only 42% of the over-60s have received a booster. Will the Taoiseach tell us when he expects that cohort to be completed? Will he share with us the vaccination plan, as it is known, from now into the new year by cohort, vaccination type and timeline? That type of information would be hugely important in allaying concerns about the new variant but also to give people hope for the new year, including sectors impacted by restrictions.

I welcome that NIAC has today approved vaccines for children. When will these vaccinations commence? Where will they be administered? Will the capacity be increased in parallel with the booster campaign? Importantly, when will the information campaign for parents on vaccines for children start? We saw what happened when the Government brought in the mandatory mask wearing for schools overnight and then threatened to exclude children for non-compliance without first explaining the basics of why it was deemed necessary. Does the Government have an information campaign ready to go to explain the benefits of vaccines for children so parents have all the facts they need and disinformation is not guiding their decision making?

To recap, is the number of appointments actually increasing? What is the Government doing about the system and the double bookings? Will the Government give us an indicative vaccination plan into the new year before Christmas? The information campaign is vital for parents. When will that be rolled out?

I thank the Deputy for raising the issue. What I said yesterday and today is not blaming people. It was to underline the importance of the booster, especially in light of the arrival of the Omicron variant. I was talking to the President of the European Commission and others. There is still a bit to go on interpreting the data, research and science. The science seems to indicate we are looking at a more infectious and more transmissible variant but that vaccination still gives protection against disease, hospitalisation and admission to an ICU. There must be a very clear message from all of us to people that when they get their opportunity to get the booster that they take it. It will give you a very quick increase in antibodies and your capacity to resist severe disease and illness from both Delta and Omicron.

If one looks at how transmissible Delta is, early evidence suggests Omicron is more infectious and has an advantage over Delta. We can see what is happening in the UK and in other countries where evidence is coming out about how rapidly it is developing, and that is a concern.

The best possible protection is to get the booster dose. Some early tests are showing that. They are also showing that the first and second doses have a weakening effectiveness against Omicron but the third dose significantly improves your capacity to avoid severe illness and disease. Yes, the HSE is working through its systems and so on, which are open to 50-year-olds and 60-year-olds this week. It is constantly reviewing how best to maximise uptake in the next number of weeks through its booster campaign. We are at just more than 1 million booster doses, which is about fourth in Europe. Looking immediately ahead, the most effective thing we can do as a country is to do everything we possibly can to get the booster to as many people as quickly as we can. That is what is required. I say to people that if they get the opportunity to get the booster, they should take it.

Pharmacies are helpful but they by no means cover anywhere near a critical mass of those being vaccinated. To be fair, GPs have been very strong when it comes to the older age cohorts. That has to be said. I pay tribute to the GPs for their work and to those pharmacies who have taken the booster dose up.

On children and vaccinations, NIAC has now made recommendations for the administration of paediatric vaccines. It has recommended that children aged five to 11 years, especially those with an underlying condition, living with a younger child with complex medical needs or living with an immunocompromised adult, should receive the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer. This should be offered in parallel with booster doses for those of all ages with underlying conditions. The recommendations go a little further, which I can elaborate on later. The Department of Health and the HSE are now working on a plan involving the information campaign advised by the Deputy. They will publish that plan in the next number of days.

Many members of the public felt blamed yesterday, even though it was not their fault. There is a system failure. The Taoiseach needs to find ways of fixing that system so that we are not duplicating, being wasteful and people are not queueing longer than they need to, which is one of the reasons they might be put off in the winter and will make alternative arrangements. The Taoiseach needs to give us an assurance about those systems because there is a problem there. The HSE has acknowledged that.

I know we cannot be certain about things because they will change, but an indicative vaccination plan across cohorts and vaccination types would be very helpful as we go into the new year. For example, the Janssen vaccine becomes less protective in a reasonably short period of time. We need to see that plan before Christmas. The public would find a degree of reassurance in that, especially given what the Taoiseach said about Omicron.

On the trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights, TRIPS, waiver, nobody is safe until everybody is safe. Europe has to change its attitude. The Taoiseach mentioned talking to his European counterparts. We have to push that to make sure other jurisdictions have the kind of cover they need. We will all have different variants if that is not done.

The HSE acknowledges that it has to improve systems, but it is more than that. In my conversations with all the principals yesterday, there was a sense, to be frank, that the same urgency that applied to getting a first and second dose was not quite there for the third dose. That is not to cast blame or anything like that, but to urge everybody that the booster has very significant and positive impacts in strengthening the immune system against new variants of this disease, and especially from getting severely ill and ending up in hospital or an ICU. We know that up to 50% of those who are in ICU are unvaccinated and the figure is similar for those who are hospitalised.

Again, we have had a voluntary system, which I support wholeheartedly. I do not believe in any mandatory approaches to vaccination at all. We have achieved very high levels of vaccination through the voluntary system in Ireland and that is the approach we should take. Even now, people are coming forward to get their first dose, which is encouraging, because of the points we have been making.

On the TRIPS waiver, the European Union has been the best continent. It has exported approximately 750 million doses to 150 countries.