Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In the context of the last discussion with Deputy Murphy on the procurement and roll-out of vaccines and the role of the Commission and the member states, I, as a parliamentarian at a remove, would be critical of the European Commission. If a straw poll were taken of members of the public, they would say unambiguously that their confidence in the European institutions as a consequence of what happened with the vaccine, when they see what happened in the UK and under the Biden Administration in America, is low. I am not interested in the blame game. Rather, as a pro-European, I am interested in seeing the institutions strengthened. If we are talking about transparency and accepting there is no playbook, how do we avoid in future what has happened with the vaccine roll-out?