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The Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe has defended the Government’s decision to change the vaccination programme to an age-based system in the face of sharp criticism from teachers and Garda representative unions.
Mr Donohoe told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland on Wednesday that the scientific advice was that an age-based system would be quicker, with four-fifths of the country expected to be inoculated by the end of June under the revised programme.
The Cabinet on Tuesday agreed the first general loosening of Covid-19 restrictions since the State entered Level 5 last December, as well as the change to the National Vaccination Programme. From April 12th, the 5km travel restriction will be lifted so people can travel within their own county or within 20km of their home if they are crossing county boundaries.
Meanwhile, the National Vaccination Programme will prioritise groups based on age, once those aged 70 years and older, people considered vulnerable and those with underlying conditions are immunised. The original programme involved 15 cohorts of people based on age and profession. Cohort 10 was due to be key workers in essential jobs who cannot avoid a high risk of exposure and cohort 11 was people essential to education.
Virologist Dr Cillian De Gascun, director of University College Dublin’s National Virus Reference Laboratory and a member of the National Immunisation Advisory Committee (Niac), said that the risk of hospitalisation, admission to intensive care and death was behind the decision to move to the age-based vaccination plan.
“It all increases significantly with age. No other factor really comes close,” said Dr De Gascun, chair of the National Public Health Emergency Team’s Covid-19 expert advisory group.
“So if the aim of the programme is to reduce morbidity and mortality, which ours is, then stratifying by age for the general population makes most sense.”
‘Sucker punch’
The Garda Representative Association (GRA), however, has described the decision as “a sucker punch” to its members while the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) said the move was “extraordinarily disrespectful” to teachers.
Mr Donohoe said vaccinating on the basis of profession would slow down the programme and posed a greater challenge to public health.
He said the decision reflected the advice the Government had received, which said there was a greater risk of serious illness the older the person infected was.
The Minister said the advice was “crystal clear” and that risk increased with age. Mr Donohoe said the country was indebted to workers such as gardaí and teachers and that a step-by-step phased reopening would help to get the country to a better place.
Frank Thornton, president of the GRA, said the decision “downgraded” the work of gardaí and disregarded the risks they take while policing the Covid-19 pandemic.
Mr Thornton told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland that when the GRA met with Minister for Justice Helen McEntee on March 18th she had agreed that An Garda Síochána should be vaccinated when the vulnerable cohort was completed.
Mr Thornton said it “beggars belief” that gardaí on the frontline were considered to be no more at risk than someone working from home.
The GRA is now seeking a meeting with Niac to better understand their decision which “lacked transparency”, he said.
The morale of members of the force was “absolutely on the floor” in the past 12 hours since the announcement, Mr Thornton added.
Martin Marjoram, president of the TUI, told Newstalk Breakfast he would like to know how the decision was reached.
He said he could understand the need to prioritise the vulnerable, but did not know how a decision like this could have been made without any consultation.
“It makes very little sense from our perspective that there was no consultation. It has made us very angry,” he said.
Mr Marjoram said the union was seeking engagement with Government on the matter but that it should have taken place before the public announcement.
The general secretary of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors (AGSI) Antoinette Cunningham told the same programme that the change to an age-based system was “a poor decision” as gardaí were needed to police the pandemic and frequently had to operate in high-risk situations such as protests and parties.
She said “this disease is about transmission” and gardaí were frequently exposed to the virus in unique situations.
Expert advice
Speaking on Tuesday night, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said the decision to change to an age-based system was based on the advice of health experts
“What they’re saying is the 15 cohorts were too many, trying to stick to those might actually slow it down,” he told RTÉ’s PrimeTime programme. “So it’s better to have nine and of those nine, it’s really three big groups.”
Mr Varadkar said age was the main predictor for a bad outcome from Covid-19 and “that’s why it’s going to be done by age”.
“We are going with science and we are going with the medicine on this,” he said. “If you look at this from a scientific point of view . . . say you have a 35-year-old garda or a 35-year-old teacher, are they at more risk or less risk than a 60-year-old factory worker or a 60-year-old retail worker? It’s actually the 60 year old that’s at more risk.”
Mr Varadkar also said while children’s clothes and shoes are “essential”, it is possible to buy them online or over the phone.
“They are essential but it’s possible to buy online or possible to buy over the phone. I have heard some incidents of children needing special medical footwear, I think we need to look at that if there’s a particular condition they have,” he said.
Mr Varadkar said the Government had considered allowing click-and-collect services, but it had resulted in “a lot of movement” previously.