Alan Kelly has slammed Stephen Donnelly for saying we got double the number of vaccines we really got this week.
The Labour leader rounded on the Minister for Health after he claimed he didn’t know his facts during a questions and answers session for TDs on the vaccine rollout programme.
Mr Kelly said: “It’s really worrying that the Minister for Health is not on top of this life saving vaccine.”
Mr Donnelly told the Dáil that there had been 48,000 vaccine doses delivered this week.
But the HSE have said that the real number is only half this, at 24,750 doses.
Mr Kelly is calling for transparency and for a daily tally on vaccinations to be published.
He said: “The Minister for Health didn’t seem to know how many vaccine doses came into Ireland this week.
"In the Dáil today he was once again not able to clearly set out how many vaccine doses are being delivered into Ireland on a weekly basis, the long promised daily updates on the total number of people that have been vaccinated still isn’t happening, and no breakdown is available on how many Covid-facing healthcare staff in each hospital have received the vaccine.
“The Minister told me that 48,000 Pfizer vaccine doses arrived this week, but the HSE has said that 24,570 doses arrived.
"We need full transparency and accuracy on how many doses of each vaccine are being delivered every week.
“Last week, the Minister committed to provide a breakdown of vaccine figures to my colleague Deputy Duncan Smith.
"One week on, we still have no information on the vaccination rates across the frontline.
"Meanwhile, we continue to hear that non-Covid workers in hospitals are receiving vaccination due to the haphazard nature of this vaccine rollout.
“This doesn’t make any sense. At a critical time for our health service, the Minister should have data outlining the number of Covid-facing frontline workers who have been vaccinated.
"It’s really worrying that the Minister for Health is not on top of this life saving vaccine.
"In addition to this, vaccination figures are not being updated daily, the most available data on this was updated last Sunday.
"It is impossible for the Government to develop any strategic plan to reopen our country in March without this information, which means the public should expect the usual incoherent approach - lockdown, surge, lockdown, surge.
“It is clear that there is no strategy behind the rollout of this life-saving vaccine.
"The Minister is under severe pressure – our hospitals are at surge capacity, our frontline workers are exhausted, and there is no strategy for the roll out of the vaccine.
"This is why I continue to call for a dedicated Minister to manage the vaccine rollout.
"We need one person responsible for this task– to manage procurement, logistics, set up an IT system and the rollout itself.
"In 2021, it is crazy to believe that there is no IT system in place to manage the most fundamental instrument we have to fight this virus.
“The Minister told us this morning that 3% of the population has been vaccinated as of Sunday – 143,000 doses administered to date.
"At this rate, it’s clear that the March target of vaccinating 700,000 will now not be met, further pushing back the likelihood of life getting back to normal anytime soon. Poor Government decisions on this are affecting lives, businesses, jobs - society as a whole."
