The national vaccination plan is to be accelerated, with all nursing home staff and residents to be offered the jab within two weeks.

The Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said officials have decided to use some of the supply held in reserve for second doses.

He said the supply has been constant up to now and the Government has received “solid reassurance from Pfizer that this will continue to be the case.”

“Speed is of the essence and this is especially true for the most vulnerable people in our society,” he said.

It comes just days after Minister Donnelly set a deadline of the end of January for the vaccination of nursing homes.

In his statement this evening, he said the HSE was on target to have 40,000 people vaccinated by the end of the week.

The Government has faced criticism over the speed of the vaccination programme in recent with a number of EU countries reporting significantly higher rates of administration.

Minister Donnelly said the acceleration would also see residents and staff at mental health and disability residential centres offer the jab in the next two weeks.

He said the HSE was mobilising 65 vaccination teams to get the job done with the programme running seven days a week.

The Minister said this morning’s announcement of the EU plan to purchase an additional 200 to 300 doses of the Pfizer vaccine later this year was “good news for Europe.”

“I look forward to reviewing the options which will be made available to Ireland,” he said.

He said no decisions have yet been made regarding the allocation of additional doses to Member States.

Ireland expects to receive around 3.3 million doses as a result of the new deal.