NPHET is planning to discuss whether mandatory vaccination for Covid-19 should be introduced.
Health officials are waiting for a report on the “ethical and legal” issues around such a move.
It comes as unvaccinated people continue to account for about 50 per cent of intensive care cases, despite making up just 6 per cent of the population.
Professor of Immunovirology at UCC, Liam Fanning, says mandatory vaccinations are worth considering:
“It’s a very valuable national discussion to have. And I can see it of being of value in patient safety, public engagement professions where you know you want to protect your staff and the people coming into you, that they are not going to get an infection as a result of coming into hospital”
However Liam Herrick from the Irish Council for Civil Liberties says mandatory vaccinations would not help:
“The most effective way to get a high vaccine take-up is to provide strong public health information to the people, encourage people on a voluntary basis to take up the vaccine and then really take special efforts to reach the hard to reach sections of the population. And the signs on that are that we have one of the highest vaccination rates in the world”
