Would you be happy for your children to receive covid-19 vaccine

Reduced chance of getting COVID.

Reduced yes and it seems only if they keep getting boosters every six months for the foreseeable going on current vaccine performance. Two jabs now, then another in May, then another in November, rinse and repeat. Next they'll be getting wee vaccine passports of their own.

Reduced chance of having bad to severe symptoms if they do get it; reduced risk of hospitalisation.

The risks of severe symptoms in the under 25's is tiny. Of the confirmed positives under 25 the risk of hospitalisation is 0.8% and we have no figures on the underlying conditions in that demographic. The risk of death is even tinier. Of the 205848 postive confirmed cases of Covid 19 in Irish people under the age of 25 to date, there were 7 deaths. That's a risk of death in a positive case of 0.003%. Monumentally minscule.

Reduced chance of transmitting it on to other people.

Again reduced, but by how much is still very much up in the air. A week or so ago the highest percentage of vaccinations in Ireland was in Waterford county, which also had a rate of infection three times higher than the average for the rest of the country. The kids were spreading it? OK, but if so and the vast majority of adults were vaccinated and the vaccine reduces the chances of getting it why such high numbers? It seems these vaccines aren't nearly so great at stopping transmission as promised. If I'm vaccinated against measles or chicken pox and a couple of kids with one dose each on board come up and cough in my face I'm not going to come down with either. The same most certainly can't be claimed for the current vaccines.

Wibbs, aside from the unevidenced speculation,

I don't see how it is close to speculation, because that is precisely what has happened in the adult population. The fact is your position that boosters are irrelevant at this stage is far more speculative as is the lack of compulsion. Because both are in play, today, with the adult population and up until six months ago the same adult population was in the same position as children today.

that's entirely irrelevant to the decision about whether to take the initial doses, since whatever the future regulations are I cannot see how they would prioritize unvaccinated over vaccinated unboosted.

Again that's already coming into play. Take France as an example. From January if you're French or want to visit France with any ease, if you don't have a booster you may as well be unvaccinated. If you do decide to go to France as a vaccinated person minus the booster you'll be working under essentially the same protocols of testing etc as someone who is unvaccinated.

Véran did however introduce an incentive to get a booster shot. Adults will need one by January 15 for their COVID health passes -- which allows access to restaurants, bars and other indoor venues -- to remain valid.

Individuals over the age of 65 will have to have the third dose by 15 December, the government had already announced.

If they don't they have to get a negative PCR test the validity of which has come down from 72 hours to 24. Again at that point they may as well be unvaccinated. There's your prioritising in action and there's your compulsion in action in France from this month on. Now the same French have said that vaccines for children won't be in play until 2022 and would be optional when they are. It'll be interesting to see how that plays out when Ireland with a higher percentage of the adult population vaccinated is now moving into vaccinating children. Austria with it's upcoming mandatory vaccinations has shortened the considered fully vaccinated minus boosters from nine to seven months. Your claim that: "Boosters are irrelevant at this stage. Even if they are offered in future, nothing compels you to take them up" looks more than a bit shaky.

Unless you're proposing to pivot a childhood vaccination decision into something like civil disobedience.

I have no idea what you mean here?

What I'm saying is that the possible future requirement for boosters to retain rights limited to vaccinated children has no bearing on the decision to vaccinate now, unless that initial decision is being made in order to avoid future vaccine-based restrictions.

Swap out "children" for "adults" in your sentence and you could have said the same thing six months ago. Today you can't. As I have demonstrated and with examples relevant to today and going forward unless something radically changes there is an increasing requirement and compulsion for adults to have boosters. This is a reality, not speculation. But Children will be different? Six months ago vaccinating children was barely in the mix. Hell we were told that magic happened at the school gates and kids weren't spreading this pox. Until magically they were, or weren't, who knows(other than the dogs on the street) and we got masks and open windows and HEPA filtration. And now vaccines. And you really believe boosters won't come into this in six or eight months time, when adults will likely have had at least one extra boost?

Since absolutely nobody is saying "I'm vaccinating my under 12s so they can gain access to restaurants" or whatever, that line of argument is completely irrelevant.

Clearly your definition of relevant differs from mine. And again you could have said similar of adults and accessing restaurants or whatever six months ago. Indeed that was a fair bit of the push behind getting the under twenties and thirties vaccinated a few months ago. That "whatever" can easily be applied to play groups, schools, after school indoor activities for kids. And kids eat in cafes too and go to the cinema, both of which need covid passes for adults. If the reason we're vaccinating kids is to protect them and reduce transmission in the community, the same reasons we took the vaccines ourselves as adults, how do they magically avoid all the other stuff that we as vaccinated adults require now and in the future?