Health minister unaware of how many will be vaccinated this week

The Government has consistently missed its own vaccination targets and has yet to administer 1m doses despite promising to have achieved more than this by the end of last month. File picture: Stephen Collins/Collins Photos

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly does not know how many people will be vaccinated this week and has yet to set targets for when various age groups will receive their first jab.

The Government has consistently missed its own vaccination targets and has yet to administer 1m doses despite promising to have achieved more than this by the end of last month.

Asked when a 40-year-old person could expect to be vaccinated, Stephen Donnelly said: “in June or July”. The specific time frame would be announced later this week.

Mr Donnelly has also confirmed that the target of administering one million vaccines would be missed. However, he said the vaccination programme will be ramped up in the coming months.

Asked when we can expect to be vaccinating 250,000 a week, as had been promised from this month, Mr Donnelly said: "I haven't got the week-by-week figures in front of me" but, again, said the programme was being ramped up.

Full capacity

He later suggested it would be June before vaccination centres are working at full capacity and are rolling out 250,000 doses each week.

"By the time we're moving into late May, June, we've been doing quite a bit in excess of 250,000 what you're up to review right. So April, May is an average of about a million vaccines. Obviously, it'll be a bit less this month, it'll be a bit more in June, may be quite a bit."

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly suggested it would be June before vaccination centres are working at full capacity and are rolling out 250,000 doses each week. Picture: Sasko Lazarov/Rollingnews.ie

Speaking on RTÉ radio’s News at One, Mr Donnelly said 19 of the planned 38 vaccination centres around the country were now open and last week 130,000 vaccinations were carried out.

But he could not said how many people will be vaccinated this week, saying he "doesn't have the exact figure".

All parts of the health service, including vaccination centres, GPs and pharmacies will be involved in the rollout as the numbers being vaccinated increases, he added.

Vaccinators

The minister said having enough vaccinators would not be an issue as there were between 500 and 600 people now in place with 800 to 900 cleared “and ready to go” at the vaccination centres.

So far good progress was being made, he said, recruitment was ongoing to ensure enough people were being hired. “That does appear to be working quite well.”

Mr Donnelly said 95% of doses “are in the arms within seven days” and that if supplies arrive on time that four out of five people in the country who want the vaccine would have it.