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The total number of doses of the Covid-19 vaccine administered by the Health Service Executive was 435,895 as of last Saturday, the latest figures show.
The total is made up of 294,550 first doses and 141,345 second doses.
By Saturday, 50,704 people 85 and older had received their first dose of vaccine.
The HSE has said it remains on target to administer dose 1 of the Covid-19 vaccines to people 85 and older by the end of the first week of this month.
The HSE had promised to deliver about 100,000 vaccines in total last week, Monday through Sunday.
The figures show that from Monday to Saturday it had delivered 77,557 doses.
The HSE also said there are also plans to administer vaccines to people who are confined to their homes.
Meanwhile, differences remain between official data published by the HSE and the European Center for Disease Control on the progress of vaccination in Ireland.
Today, the ECDC website says that Ireland has received 499,200 doses of vaccines and has administered 332,384 of them, representing 65.5% of the vaccines supplied to the country.
The HSE has insisted that 96% of what is available has been administered.
The data on the ECDC website is provided by the Irish authorities.
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“Virtually everyone” over the age of 85 will be vaccinated later this week, according to the chairman of the GP Committee of the Irish Medical Organization.
Speaking to RTÉ’s Today with Claire Byrne, Dr. Denis McCauley said there are more than 44,000 patients among the 85-plus cohort to be vaccinated this week.
Dr. McCauley said there are about 72,000 patients in this age group to be vaccinated and that more than 71,000 should be vaccinated by the end of this week.
He said some people may not get the vaccine for various reasons, such as being sick, or they may not want to get it, or they may be recovering from Covid-19.
He said surgeries are notified only 48 hours in advance before vaccines are delivered, but most practices have preparatory work that allows them to contact patients and administer the vaccine quickly.
Dr. McCauley said there is a plan “about to go live” for bedridden patients and planners want these patients to receive the mRNA vaccine and this will involve a mobile unit going to people’s homes.
If it had been decided to give these vulnerable patients the AstraZeneca vaccines, he said, they probably would have been inoculated by now.
He reiterated that these patients are a top priority and said they are not lagging behind, but the plan is technically very difficult to implement.
Dr. McCauley said he expected the plan to be implemented in the next two weeks.
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