Alan Kelly
Question:13. Deputy Alan Kelly asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the status of the national risk assessment for 2021. [29777/21]
View answerTuesday, 22 June 2021
Questions (13, 14, 15, 16)
James Lawless
Question:14. Deputy James Lawless asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the national risk assessment. [33008/21]
View answer
Richard Boyd Barrett
Question:15. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the status of the national risk assessment for 2021. [33398/21]
View answer
Paul Murphy
Question:16. Deputy Paul Murphy asked the Taoiseach if he will report on the status of the national risk assessment for 2021. [33401/21]
View answerOral answers (6 contributions)
I propose to take Questions Nos. 13 to 16, inclusive, together.
The purpose of the national risk assessment, NRA, is to identify major strategic risks to Ireland's well-being in consultation with stakeholders. Since it was first published in 2014, the national risk assessment has provided an overview of strategic risks and has drawn attention, at an early stage, to the importance of phenomena such as Brexit, housing shortages and pandemics. The process of preparing the assessment has been designed to ensure wide consultation across the full range of stakeholders. This involves the dissemination of a draft for public consultation and opportunities for stakeholders and Oireachtas Members to contribute to the development of the final version.
The national risk assessment is not intended to replace the detailed risk management and preparedness carried out by Departments and agencies, including by the National Emergency Co-ordination Centre. Rather, it is part of the overall risk management framework and is a tool to assist Departments and agencies to update existing or develop new mitigation plans.
The two years since the NRA was last published in 2019 have been particularly turbulent as a number of major risks have materialised. The Covid-19 pandemic has been the most significant of these, not least in the cost to health and life. Given the impact on resources of the pandemic crisis in 2020, the Department was not in a position to prepare an updated national risk assessment last year. However, work is well advanced on preparing an updated draft version this year, which I hope will be published for consultation shortly.
Covid will continue to be the biggest risk as we move forward but hospital overcrowding will also be a significant risk. We barely had a flu season in 2020 due to everything. Ensuring as many people as possible are vaccinated this winter will be critical.
I want to ask the Taoiseach about supply issues regarding the roll-out. What are we ordering for next year? I know decisions were to be made by the Cabinet today. It would be useful if the Taoiseach outlined them in his response. I know we had 4.9 million Pfizer doses ordered for next year and again for 2023. There were reports in various media saying that we would need to have booster shots in 2022 as, hopefully, we will get to a point where everyone in the country has been offered a vaccine and we are fully vaccinated by September or October at the latest. From a risk point of view, will the Taoiseach outline if we all need to get boosters? From what I am hearing, I suggest we probably do. What are the plans for that? Have we everything ordered for the end of this year and early next year? The Chief Medical Officer, CMO, has indicated to the National Immunisation Advisory Committee, NIAC, that a booster campaign will potentially be needed. Will the Taoiseach please outline to us whether he believes there will be a need for a booster at the end of this year, starting with the elderly and working all the way through the various vulnerable groups and age cohorts? Have we purchased the vaccines? I know about Pfizer. I heard stories today about Janssen and Moderna. It would be useful if the Taoiseach outlined his thoughts on a booster campaign and what vaccines have been purchased.
On behalf of Deputy Lawless, I thank the Taoiseach for his response regarding the national risk assessment. The assessment began in 2014, there was another in 2019 and the most recent one was deferred.
From my assessment, I understand that the level of spending in Ireland on defence in 2019 was 0.2% of GDP. By my calculations, that is far too low, even by the standards of any comparable neutral country. In a recent budget there was a bigger annual increase for the military pensions than there was for day-to-day defence expenditure. Could the Taoiseach have this examined, perhaps by reference to other similar neutral countries for instance, Finland, Sweden and Austria? It is an important issue and we need to take account of it. Given that the assessment has not been done yet, as we are going to head into a new cycle it is important that we go in with a view to spending more to ensure the outcome is better.
The pandemic has clarified some of the key risks facing this country, and in some cases has created risks, so it is important that we respond. The Taoiseach has spoken a lot about higher education, placements and people getting qualifications. I repeatedly put to him a number of examples of where we are not doing what he is saying we are going to do. One thing the pandemic has done is created something of a mental health crisis for particular cohorts in society, yet we are chronically under capacity in terms of the supply of psychologists. We have 400 fewer psychologists than were identified as being required under A Vision for Change. Interestingly, in Sharing the Vision, the reference to psychologists has disappeared altogether because we have not been able to build the capacity. I pointed out to the Taoiseach that the difficulties are immense, in particular for working-class people or people on low incomes in getting doctorates in psychology. There is a chronic lack of places for all types of psychology doctorates. The level of fees for doctorates is €15,000 a year, and in the case of educational and counselling psychology no funding at all is available. People are expected to do 30 months over three years of work and get no funding. People are working unpaid on placement and paying perhaps €50,000 over three years in fees. They are in dire straits. How exactly is that helping remove obstacles to higher education in a key area like mental health when we have 10,000 children, adolescents and adults waiting for psychological services?
I could make the same point about doctors and the obstacles being put in the way of graduate entry courses for doctors in terms of fees and the cost of concluding their doctorates, or student nurses who still face significant fees, which they should not have to pay when we need more nurses and who are being made to work unpaid on placements throughout their nurse training.
A month ago I raised in the Dáil the need for us to take action to slow down the spread of the Delta variant in Ireland, including mandatory hotel quarantine for travellers from Britain. I raised it again with the Taoiseach last week and he said the Government is not taking any risks in terms of the Delta variant. When I first raised it, we had a small number of cases of the Delta variant in Ireland but now one in five cases is the Delta variant. In Britain, they have slowed down and delayed the reopening. Belgium has now closed its borders to travellers from Britain in order to stop the spread of the Delta variant. We know that it is more transmissible, and that one dose of Pfizer or AstraZeneca is not very effective against it. We know that young people, who make up a majority of the staff in the hospitality sector, have overwhelmingly not been vaccinated. Does the Government still think that it is not taking any risks? Is it still planning to go ahead with the reopening of indoor hospitality on 5 July? Is the Government planning to do anything about the crucial issue of ventilation, which the experts have been screaming about for a year in terms of new regulations and funding to ensure there is proper ventilation in indoor hospitality and elsewhere?
In response to Deputy Kelly's question, the Government decided today to procure additional Moderna and Janssen vaccines for 2022. I can get the specific volumes for the Deputy. That is in addition to what we have already agreed in respect of Pfizer. This is all part of the European Union pre-purchase agreement framework for 2022 and 2023. The Health Emergency and Preparedness Response Authority, HERA, was established by Europe some time ago and has been preparing for the speedier manufacture and production of vaccines to deal with variants in the future, but also to have an expanded provision of vaccines for teenagers and children if authorised by the authorising authorities. NIAC is currently looking at a vaccination programme for teenagers and children. Suffice to say, it is our view that we need to purchase a sufficiency of vaccines to take us through 2022 and 2023. Europe has already reached a deal with Pfizer to provide 900 million vaccines over the next two years. We have opted in to those pre-purchase agreements and options. It is good pre-planning by Europe. We will add any surplus vaccines to our current support for COVAX and for other countries getting vaccinated. Europe is also providing €1 billion to support and build manufacturing capacity to develop vaccines on the African continent.
Deputy Devlin makes a very fair point on investment in the Defence Forces, which we are improving and increasing. He is correct about the consultations on the next cybersecurity strategy, which had to be delayed because of Covid-19, but it is resuming. I outlined earlier the work of the commission on the Defence Forces, which is very comprehensive and in line with the programme for Government. It will also feed into the pay review body, which is also provided for in the programme for Government.
In response to Deputy Boyd Barrett, I would argue that while some of the postgraduate programmes in medicine are much more expensive than the undergraduate programmes, we provided additional places across the board at third level last year and we will do the same this year. We will do the same in further education and we will increase apprenticeship places as well.
In response to Deputy Paul Murphy's point, the Government has been and is concerned about the Delta variant. We have been monitoring it very carefully. We set up a special group within the Government comprising senior officials to keep a very close eye on the progress and trajectory of the variant.
The United Kingdom has slowed down, although its opening was far more advanced than our opening. It has not stopped what it has already done but it has certainly not gone ahead with nightclubs and the ending of social distancing, for example, which I always thought was a bit ambitious. It has stopped that because of the higher transmissibility of the Delta variant.
We are going to have to examine this. We will take the public health advice. The CMO and his team are examining this. The most recent data indicate a higher incidence of the Delta variant now in Ireland, which is a matter of significant concern. We have to look at this on a number of fronts in terms of our vaccination strategy and in terms of ventilation, absolutely. We will keep the whole reopening strategy under close review, as we always do, and, as we have said all along, everything we do is subject to ongoing public health advice.