The Health Minister has confirmed 94,000 people have received their first dose so far.
71,000 frontline healthcare workers and 23,000 residents and staff of nursing homes have received the jab.
Today, cabinet has approved a plan that will see GPs and pharmacists administer COVID vaccines.
I've received an update on our vaccination programme and by Sunday night we had given 94,000 vaccines – 71,000 to our frontline healthcare workers and 23,000 to residents and staff of long-term care facilities. Well done to all involved including @AmbulanceNAS @defenceforces pic.twitter.com/AGgFCOKo6L
— Stephen Donnelly (@DonnellyStephen) January 19, 2021
The €91m plan will allow them to give the AstraZeneca vaccine once it's approved by the European Medicines Agency at the end of the month.
Doctors and chemists will be paid €60 for every two doses given to patients.
The payment will be €35 for a single shot vaccine like the one being developed by Johnson and Johnson.
Darragh O'Loughlin from the Irish Pharmacy Union says they could vaccinate 1.5 million people by the end of the summer.
"The speed at which it's done will be based on the number of vaccines that are available"
Mr O'Loughlin says the ability to mass vacinate is there.
"Last autumn, between GPs and pharmacists, we administered about 1.5million flu vaccines in the space of six weeks."
Meanwhile, Dr Denis McCauley from the Irish Medical Organisation says GPs could play a significant part in the rollout:
"We know the population that are first and second in line and we're really keen to get some level of mortality back."
The Department of Health aims to have 140,000 people vaccinated by Sunday.
