Complications with the vaccinator recruitment process will not prevent the HSE from hiring enough people to rollout doses as quickly as they arrive.

On The Hard Shoulder this evening, the Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said he has been given “repeated assurances” that there will be capacity to administer more than 250,000 doses per week.

He was speaking after a host of listeners warned that highly-qualified people were having serious difficulties applying – with doctors and nurses forced to jump through 'hoops' and 'hurdles' as part of the process.

Highlighting the issue in the Dáil meanwhile, the Labour leader Alan Kelly warned that Ireland “won’t have enough vaccinators’ if the process was not streamlined.

Vaccine rollout

This evening, Minister Donnelly said the health service will have the vaccinators it needs to extend the rollout as soon as doses arrive.

“Really what matters, as these bigger volumes of vaccines come in, and they are beginning to come in now, can we very quickly ramp up like we said we would in April?” he said.

“From next week onwards, can we begin ramping up towards 250,000 – and ultimately, we will be doing more than 250,000.

“I have been given repeated assurances that that is the case and that the capacity is there and the vaccinators are there.

“I know the people involved have been working and continue to work very, very hard to ensure that is the case because we all understand what is at stake here.”

Recruitment

He said the process is being ‘streamlined and simplified’ – but admitted that questions about people’s school qualifications legally can’t be taken off the application forms.

“Are there questions in there that really don’t matter to anyone applying to be a vaccinator?” he asked.

“Yes. They are because of legal requirements when you are hiring healthcare professionals.

“I don’t think the thing to do is to pause hiring vaccinators in order to change the law to take a few stupid questions off a page.”

Education

He admitted that some of the questions may seem superfluous – but said they are standard for all medical roles.

“If you are hiring someone who has been a GP for 40 years, who has retired and who you are really excited about getting back and getting into your vaccination centres, obviously, nobody could care less how they did in their Maths paper or their English paper, back in the day,” he said.

“But it is a legal requirement to know the qualifications of people you are hiring as healthcare professionals.

“You can imagine if we just flip it the other way; if the right questions weren’t asked and the right processes weren’t followed and they ended up hiring someone who wasn’t qualified and there was damage done, then very important questions would be asked in the other direction.

“It is a legal requirement when you are hiring medical professionals and it is easier to just put the question in there than figure out how you change the law before you hire people.”

Minister Donnelly also confirmed that he had signed to legal authorisation for the Jansen vaccine to be used in Ireland and said doses will begin arriving “later in April.”