Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said he will sign a Labour Party pledge issued to all TDs, Senators and MEPs to take the Covid-19 vaccine and promote the public health awareness campaign when it is rolled out.
On the day the first patients in Northern Ireland and Britain received the approved vaccine against the virus Labour leader Alan Kelly told the Dáil his party had issued a letter to every national representative appealing to them to sign up for and promote the vaccine.
A number of TDs have previously declined to state if they will take the vaccine or have given reasons why they will not be inoculated.
Mr Kelly said he was “concerned at utterances by some public representatives” and the impact it was having on citizens.
“I am concerned that many citizens are being fed lies about vaccines at a critical time” and many are being fed lies “quite deliberately”.
Calling for a publicity campaign for the vaccination to begin now ahead of the roll out of the inoculation programme Mr Kelly said that politicians must be “very pro-vaccine”.
He called for TDs, Senators and MEPs to sign and return the pledge within a week.
The Tipperary TD also called for the Taoiseach or someone in the Government to talk to social media giants based in Dublin including Facebook, Twitter, Google, Instagram and TikTok because “much of the misinformation is spread on social media platforms” and these were very powerful companies.
Mr Kelly said they had changed their algorithms and rules during the recent US presidential election. He said “they need to do so again in relation to the rollout of this vaccine”.
Mr Martin described the first day of the roll-out of the vaccine in Northern Ireland and Britain as “truly a historic day and a vindication of science” after a virus that has “wreaked such havoc throughout the world”.
The Taoiseach acknowledged that “we do need to ensure that fake news does not get promoted on the various digital platforms”.
He said he recalled as minister for health similar issues with the MMR vaccine and “the damage that was done” with children becoming seriously ill with measles and a number of children died.
Mr Martin applauded the Labour initiative and said he would have “no difficulty” in signing the pledge.
