Senator John McGahon - speech from 26 Nov 2020

Minister, I suppose there are three aspects that I would really like to focus on in my remarks this evening and the first one is actually what I would describe as a strategy, a public relations strategy that is going to combat vaccine scepticism because we have seen reports in the last week alone that one third of Irish people are very wary about the vaccine, 12% of Irish people believe that they are not going to take the vaccine at all and if you were to introduce a vaccine into Ireland, that had, let's say, a 90% effective rate, you are going to need 85% of the Irish population to be able to actually take that vaccine in order for it to have any sort of effect. So I think it is very important that we make it really clear cut and really obvious that this vaccine is safe to take, that it has to be taken for the greater good and that there will be no problem with it. It will be a difficult task to try and do because we have seen on social media in recent... We have seen it become such a trend in social media that conspiracy theories, downright lies, whatever else can take hold, can take the imagination of the public and can, for want of a better word, can essentially spread like wildfire. So I think we need a really clear, and as Senator Burns said earlier on, pro-science approach based on logic, based on data that will show that we have to take the vaccine and it has to be done as soon as possible. The second point that I want to focus on is what I was talking about earlier on during the week in the Senate, which is what is the rollout strategy? So then what is the actual strategy for getting the vaccine out across the whole population? And to me that can actually be a couple of things. I would think on the first instance, we need to, when the Taoiseach brings this to government, I think on the 11th of December, as he said he wants to do, I think that then should be published to the public at large, to show, and I think that would be really good coming out of this lockdown now, that it shows people that there is a real light at the end of the tunnel, that this is the vaccine rollout strategy, this is what we are going to do to get it through our population, and these are the time frames and the targets of when we want to do it. I think that will provide people with a great deal of solace going into December, going into Christmas and going into early January. And what does that rollout strategy look like? Well, to me it says, here is our list of tiers of people that we are going to vaccinate first, the most vulnerable, or elderly, or healthcare workers, or people working in frontline jobs, and we work it down like that. And we want to have these people vaccinated by certain dates, so that there is a clear trajectory and a clear timeline of people can say, well, X amount of the population is going to be vaccinated by the end of January, X amount are going to be by the end of February, and it works it like that. I think that could be a really clear, a really good idea to be able to do, to reassure people going, reassure people on December the 11th. And then the final point I'd like to make is actually in relation to the, I suppose the concept of lockdown strategies. Now look, I'm, I'm very torn about it. I know, I think it's on one level to, it's easy to listen to people and say, we need to open this, we need to open that and we need to do this. You know, it's very clear that this virus thrives in crowded places. You know, that's the one thing we absolutely know about this. And I really don't think it's going to be about two years away before countries across the whole world can actually sit down and say, well, Ireland did it right, or New Zealand did it right, or Sweden did it right. When actually clear clinical data is going to be available to people. That's the only time in the world when you're going to be able to say, this country got it right, that country could have done better. You know, right now we are like every other government, or every other country in the world, you know, we're dealing with something that's completely and totally unprecedented that we've never seen before. So that has to be acknowledged. But what I would say about the, going back to the COVID thing, or the lockdown point I was making, lockdowns are a very blunt strategy. But at this point in time, it's the most effective strategy that we have. Now, I would much, much rather be at level three. And I think the concept of a third lockdown coming along later on, maybe next year, has to be totally forgotten about. I don't think that is feasible now. Because the virus has changed so much since March of this year. We know so much more about it. We shouldn't be necessitating lockdowns based on the metrics of case numbers, and looking at RTE and everything else every night saying what the case numbers are. Lockdowns shouldn't be decided upon case numbers. If the point is about living alongside COVID, we should be happy enough to a certain degree in a society with a level of restrictions and case numbers bubbling around at a certain level. I don't think it necessitates putting the whole country down into a stronger lockdown. We have done it this time. I've backed that. I would really think we would find it extremely difficult to try and get public buy-in for that a third time around. But if we do produce, and to finish up on this, if we do produce a really clear vaccine strategy and a roll-out strategy to say, here we are, guys. This is the final extra time as such in this COVID nightmare that started nearly 10 months ago. I think that will provide people a lot more confidence in being able to buy-in with anything else that's coming down the road. But let's... we have very much. ... Trailer experience as such. This is not quite a bit. It will also be a private review report as such as always. We will be back with a general Co-Z 9 rate令. We will have a full completely active review. If I have... We can approach them to choose to make sure the action reg一원�,