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TAOISEACH MICHEÁL MARTIN has said that a coronavirus vaccine won’t be ready in time for Christmas, but could be a “wonderful Christmas present, as in, a voucher for the next 12 months”.
Speaking to Virgin Media News, Martin said that the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines could get authorization from EU and US regulatory authorities in the second half of December.
He said that this wouldn’t mean it would be ready in time for Christmas, but that it could be a “wonderful Christmas present, as in, a voucher for the next 12 months”.
The Taoiseach said a high-level taskforce would need to be established to “go through the logistics” of rolling out the vaccine to people, adding that a 70% take-up was needed to achieve herd immunity.
Martin, who is a former health minister, said that there will be a “strong” public information campaign around the vaccine, and pointed out that vaccines have proved to be an important public health measure down through history in eliminating viruses.
Everything we have been doing has been worth it. Everything we’ve been doing in terms of the personal sacrifices, and it’s been very hard for people.
Christmas
Micheál Martin said that his aim is to have a “safe, meaningful Christmas”, with this meaning there will be no crowds or gathering in pubs.
When asked would people be allowed to travel and meet with their families for Christmas, Martin said that he didn’t want to preempt a government decision, and would want to see the number of Covid-19 cases at the end of the month.
When asked about when people will travel abroad for Christmas, Micheál Martin said that many people have decided not to fly home for Christmas, but that a decision will be made at the end of the month.
Other government figures have indicated clarity around this will be given at the end of next week.
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Is the RCC making any contribution to this compensation fund? They were the employer and they received money both from the State and from the businesses which they carried work out for. Surely, there must be some liability there. Perhaps, a transfer of RCC school property to the State, if they are stuck for ready cash?
The RCC have not paid one single euro into the fund nor have any of the Orders of Nuns.
Is it me or does the compensation sound small. They worked for years as slave labour in these laundries.
Whether intending to or not you’ve made their claim only about money.
@Ross
I’ve seen a few of these ladies on TV and they have stated that they are looking for an official apology.
Read my comment fully. It was directed at the first comment who said that the money was too low.
Maybe that’s the your mind works so you picked it up like that. If they looked for or didn’t that doesn’t change the fact they should be fairly compensated.
Why aren’t the RCC paying the full amount?? Typical, the Irish government bend over and take it up the ar se every time from this corrupt and perverted cult!! Time to separate church and state for once and for all!!
It’s a good start, but i think they want vindication as well.
It seems small change-maybe there waiting for these people to disappear off the planet for good,to reduce that €12 million compo figure!…
The maths on that don’t add up and there is nothing wrong with my calculator.If you take 357 and even assume they were at top of scale. They got lump sum of 65,000 multiply that by 357 and you get 23,205,000 that’s not 12.8 million
Also when she states CERTAIN MEDICAL SCHEMES I would like to know exactly what schemes she is referring to.
have your say