Independent.ie poll results revealed: majority support vaccine prioritisation for gardaí but not teachers

A majority of people who voted in an online poll for Independent.ie think gardaí should be prioritised in the vaccine rollout but not teachers.

In total, 11,893 people voted on whether they think gardaí should be prioritised for the vaccine, with 69pc saying yes.

However, 62pc of people in a poll of 13,547 votes said teachers should not be prioritised.

In a third poll from Independent.ie, it was found that 56pc of people voted said that they would not be willing to delay their own vaccine to allow gardaí and teachers to be vaccinated first.

In total, 12,736 people voted in the poll, with 37pc voting that they would delay it, and 7pc saying they’re indifferent.

The Independent.ie poll was opened at 3pm on Tuesday and these figures were compiled at 8am this morning.

Teacher unions are giving the Government until the summer break to put teachers back on the vaccine priority list after the system was overhauled.

But if they don’t get a clear signal of intent well before that, the possibility of strike action next term will be on the table.

Previously, teachers were in a specific category in the vaccine rollout which would have put them in the first third of the population. However, the Government’s new vaccine rollout plan prioritises people based on their age.

As such, some teachers and gardaí have argued that the Government should take a “twin track” approach to vaccination: vaccinating people based on their age and those in high risk jobs at the same time. This would be similar to how frontline healthcare workers were vaccinated alongside those over the age of 70.

The General Secretary of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation said yesterday that at least one day should be put aside over the coming months to vaccinate special education staff.

“There’s only 8,000-9,000 workers across primary and secondary between SNAs and teachers that work in special education, and the infection levels have been really, really high there compared to other schools,” John Boyle said on Morning Ireland.

“Last weekend in the Helix, 6,500 people were vaccinated in one day. So you’re really talking about giving a message to teachers that we care about you as workers, and about the SNAs, and that you’re prepared to put one day aside in the next two to three months to vaccinate the special ed staff.”

Antoinette Cunningham, general secretary of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors, also discussed the need for Gardaí to be vaccinated.

“Everybody that we encounter supports Gardaí being vaccinated, everybody sees the reasons why members of An Garda Síochána who have no choice but to go into a house, rush into a house, as my colleagues in the north-west of the country did two days ago, to an urgent domestic violence situation where somebody rang in extreme distress,” she said on RTÉ’s This Week radio programme.

“You go in, you do the best you can, you deal with the incident, somebody is arrested, they are taken into custody, and it later transpires that they are Covid positive, and now four gardaí are isolating because of that.”

Irish Independent