Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has said Ireland has to accept it is lagging behind the UK when it comes to vaccinating people against Covid-19.
But defending the slower pace of rollout here when compared to the North and Britain, he said the Republic was performing well compared with other countries globally and within the EU.
As the Irish Times reports, he told reporters at The Helix at Dublin City University (DCU), the State’s first mass vaccination centre that "People are very reasonably looking at the UK and saying, well, the UK are further ahead.”
“And they are. We have to accept that, they are.”
But Ireland has “one of the faster vaccine roll-outs in the EU” and risked being even worse off if it decided to go it alone in purchasing its own supply of jabs, he added.
“We’re a member of the EU, going with the EU,” Mr Donnelly said.
“Had we gone on our own and as a tiny country tried to purchase millions and millions of doses of vaccines, it is not at all certain we would have been able to do that.
Cabinet approval
“We would have been competing with the might of the EU. As a member of the EU, and through the EU, we have already advance purchased about 16 million doses, and I’m looking for Cabinet approval shortly to increase that again.”
Latest figures show 310,900 vaccines — 113,291 of them second jabs — have been administered in the Republic. The figures suggest just less than 4 per cent of the overall population has received a first jab.
In the North, 436,143 people have been administered a first dose, which translates as 23.3 per cent of the population. England has vaccinated 25.4 per cent, Scotland 25.7 per cent and Wales 26.8 per cent.
The UK has benefited from ample supplies of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine.
But Mr Donnelly insisted Ireland — tied to the EU, which has been locked in a row with AstraZeneca about access to supplies — has “secured a lot of vaccine”.
“On a global level we are doing very well, within the EU we are doing very well,” he said.
