Martin Browne (Tipperary, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Ms O'Reilly looked at the initial assessment for the procurement of the Covid vaccines with pharmaceutical companies. Was the European Commission in the best position to carry out advanced procurement? Is it the best administrator to make key decisions in that kind of a crisis? When it comes to the negotiations between the European Commission and pharmaceutical companies, especially AstraZeneca, is Ms O'Reilly in a position to say there was more transparency with the public? Could the deals have been more effective? Could they have inspired more confidence in the EU's ability to roll out such programmes?

A significant amount of public money was given to the pharmaceutical companies to develop these vaccines. The pharma companies, however, then kept the patents and intellectual property rights. Ms O'Reilly said earlier that this was causing problems in Europe in getting the vaccines manufactured. Developing countries are now relying on big pharma for these life-saving vaccines. There is a possibility that Third World countries will be left behind in this process.

I agree with Ms O'Reilly on transparency. If there is transparency from the start, it does away with social media doctors and people getting their information from unreliable sources. That is where an awful lot of problems have arisen.