However he cautioned, “The vaccine supply schedule is a ‘best guess’ because it depends on variables like when new vaccines are approved – and on how fast they can be manufactured.
"Procurement and IT are vital to the success of the vaccination programme. In addition to procuring the vaccines themselves, we need millions of surgical steel needles and syringes to administer up to 10m vaccine doses.
"The rest of the world is trying to procure the same equipment. The Chief Procurement Officer and the Chief Information Officer report to me and have confirmed that Ireland has secured enough supplies to administer 10m vaccine does.”