Quoting issue in Perl/MySQL program

Hello,
I have this line in my program (a CGI script):

$sth=$dbh->prepare (qq{SELECT firstname,lastname,type FROM persons WHERE firstname LIKE “$param[0]” AND lastname LIKE “$param[1]” and type LIKE “$param[2]”} );

$sth->execute ();

My question is: do the quotes before the $param[0] need to be removed?