Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly will seek Cabinet approval for a vaccination programme for infants this autumn and winter for RSV.
Up to 28,000 babies born between September 2024 and February 2025 would be offered a vaccine under the plan.
Parents will be encouraged to vaccinate their newborns before leaving the hospital and the vaccine would be effective for up to 5 months – the average length of an RSV season.
Protection from the vaccine is immediate once administered.
Last year there were 1,397 RSV hospitalisations in infants under one year of age, and the majority of these (1,017) were in infants less than 6 months of age.
In winter 2023/2024 there were 118 paediatric intensive care unit admissions of infants under one year of age attributed to RSV.
Adult ICU beds had to be placed on standby for paediatric patients due to the high numbers being admitted to hospital and ICU.
Minister Donnelly drew up plans for a vaccine programme to start for newborns in September following advice from the National Immunisation Advisory Committee (NIAC) that vaccines were safe and effective.
NIAC noted that preliminary data from a clinical trial conducted in Europe during winter 2022/23, involving over 8,000 infants, reported an 83% reduction in RSV related hospitalisations in infants.
Mr Donnelly has been advised that applying the evidence to the Irish infant population could result in the avoidance of up to 453 hospitalisations and up to 48 ICU admissions if there was a 50% take-up among newborns this autumn and winter.
Education
Minister for Education Norma Foley, and the Minister with responsibility for Special Education Hildegarde Naughton, will bring a memo to cabinet to hire 44 therapists to work with teachers and children with special educational needs.
To date, it had been very difficult to fill the roles for 39 speech and language therapists (SLTs) and occupational therapists, as well as five behavioural therapists, because they were on a temporary basis.
But sanction has now been given by the Department of Public Expenditure for the roles to be advertised as permanent positions.
The therapists will work collaboratively with teachers in classrooms to improve learning outcomes for students. This has been successfully piloted in schools and is known as the School Inclusion Model.
It complements the one-to-one work being done with children and young people by SLTs, occupational therapists and behavioural therapists on the HSE’s primary care and disability teams.
The therapists will be employed by the National Council for Special Education.
Housing
Meanwhile, Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien will tell Cabinet that in the past three years almost 50,000 homes have been prevented from bulk purchases nationally as a result of Government measures.
A planning guideline was introduced in May 2021 which required local authorities and An Bord Pleanála to prohibit the bulk sale or purchasing of houses and duplexes in any future planning applications.
Other measures taken at the same time included legislating for an owner occupier guarantee which enables local authorities to designate a specified number of houses and duplexes for owner occupiers.
Stamp duty was also hiked to 10% to prevent the bulk buying of homes.
