John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I wish everybody a good morning and thank the witnesses for their powerful presentations. They are very much appreciated. They contained some useful information but also some stark and worrying statistics and information. I appreciate the opportunity to engage with the witnesses and to ask questions. I agree totally with the comment that gender inequality is one of the world's greatest human rights scourges. That is a very important point to make at this stage and a very important starting point for us all. It is important to address the human rights scourge that is gender inequality. We see human rights as the bedrock of everything we do and everything we should do, but we also see how human rights defenders across the world, particularly women human rights defenders, are targeted and imprisoned. I have addressed this issue on many occasions. In countries such as Saudi Arabia, female human rights defenders are imprisoned for doing such basic things as applying for a job within the UN. These are big issues that we need to get on top of if we are serious about addressing human rights abuses.

Covid has shown up many difficulties and highlighted many areas in which gender inequality is rife. It is has also highlighted other challenges with regard to domestic violence. This has, of course, been with us for far too long but it has become more prevalent over the past year or so. I have engaged with a number of organisations that deal with domestic violence in Ireland. Only last week, I met a group in my constituency of Wicklow: Bray Women's Refuge. Those I met with unfortunately painted a very stark picture with regard to how bad the problem has become over the past year. We have such supports in our country, although unfortunately not at the level needed, but I can only imagine how women must feel in less well off, developing countries where there are not such supports.

Ireland has done a great deal to address the issues of inequality and gender inequality but we are not doing enough with regard to the SDGs, particularly the fifth goal, which concerns gender inequality. I believe we are ranked tenth in the statistics for 2020, which shows that we have a long way to go if Ireland is to be in a position to say we are doing everything we can. In its report, Social Justice Ireland states that Ireland needs to do much more to accelerate progress in this regard within our country.

With regard to the four asks the witnesses have made, the first is to ensure more robust tracking of Ireland's progress in furthering the sustainable development agenda. Will they elaborate in that regard?

Another area in which I am very interested is Colombia. I welcome the report on Colombia. Other committee members and I have raised the matter of the serious issues within that country. It is interesting to see how the situation is impacting on women in Colombia in particular. I have made reference to certain statistics previously with regard to human rights defenders, including former members of Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, FARC, and other community activists, who have been targeted since 2016. This is a very useful report of which we, as committee members, should take heed and feed into our deliberations as we engage with some of the organisations that are also on the ground in Colombia and the Colombian ambassador to Ireland in the coming while. We have also asked for an engagement with Eamon Gilmore, who has played a very important role in the peace process in Colombia. The report is very welcome, albeit very stark. It shows that more than 400 human rights defenders have been murdered since the peace process commenced.

The issues in Jordan are again very stark. This committee did some important work last week in marking the grim fact of the tenth year of conflict within Syria and the human impact this has had with regard to displaced people in Jordan and other neighbouring countries such as Turkey and Lebanon. It is really important to see the impact this conflict is having with regard to education and gender inequality. I appreciate that.

I have one final point to make. It has regard to Covid, which has had a very serious impact globally. Some of the statistics as to how it has unfortunately impacted more on women are very grim and very stark. Again, this committee did some important work on the distribution of the Covid-19 vaccine to developing countries. We had some excellent contributors to our deliberations, including Dr. David Nabarro, Dr. Kieran Harkin and a number of other important people, who painted a grim picture as to the inequality in the roll-out of vaccines. Some stark information as to price was given. Some pharmaceutical companies are making massive profits from the vaccines. There is inequality involved. For example, a dose of one of the vaccines costs €2.50 in Europe but €5.80 is charged in Uganda for the same dose. One of the major calls made by all of those people with which we engaged, which was reflected in one of the key findings of the report the committee published, was that while COVAX is important in the roll-out of the vaccine to developing countries, the Covid-19 technology access pool, C-TAP, is also important.

The latter is a platform that has been created to facilitate the sharing of intellectual property rights, data, know-how and cell lines related to Covid-19 vaccines. It is a voluntary scheme which would allow countries and pharmaceutical companies to develop the vaccine and roll it out. I firmly believe there should be no profit made on the pandemic. That was one of the key findings of the committee. Have people on the ground in our guests' organisations looked at C-TAP in the context of the roll-out of Covid vaccines and the obvious disproportionate impact Covid is having on women across the world? Another key finding of the committee was to call on the Government to sign up to C-TAP and encourage pharmaceutical companies to voluntarily sign up to it to share those intellectual rights such that all people, particularly those in less developed countries, can access the vaccine.

I again thank our guests for their contributions and for engaging with the committee. I full support each of the four asks.