John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Commissioner for joining us this morning. First, I wish to make a comment, and it is not a throw-away one from my perspective, which is that nobody is safe until everyone has access to safe and effective treatments and vaccines. In other words, no one is safe until everyone is safe. We must absolutely mean that.

I welcome the Commissioner's commitment that there will be enough vaccines to vaccinate 70% of our population by mid-July. However, I note his previous comment that he was trusting less in companies in honouring their commitments. I would like to ask him specifically whether those comments solely relate to AstraZeneca or if there are more general concerns around the commitments from the large pharmaceutical companies.

I also wish to ask about alternative vaccines and the work that is being done in terms of vaccines being produced in China and the Sputnik V vaccine, and where work is at in terms of looking at those alternative vaccines. Certainly, they seem to be very effective. I note that some European countries are accessing them. I would like to hear the Commissioner's views on that.

I also want to make reference to a call from a number of former presidents, prime ministers and Nobel laureates in respect of the TRIPS waiver, which waives certain intellectual property rights. A number of members have already touched upon the issue. I believe it was yesterday that the EU foreign policy chief, High Representative Josep Borrell, tweeted his support for waiving some intellectual property rights. He quickly deleted his tweet, which was quite surprising. However, I have a copy with me. He stated: "at one point, scaling up vaccination efforts by waiving intellectual property rights will be needed to globally combat [the] Covid-19 pandemic."

We are all genuinely concerned about new variants in Ireland. Yesterday, three cases of the "Indian", or B1617, variant were detected in Ireland. Until people are vaccinated globally, there remains a serious concern about the emergence of new variants.

I note that in a recent article written by the Commissioner, he stated: "I would remind you that the companies have invested a lot and very quickly, which has enabled us to have vaccines in a few months when it usually takes several years." While that may be the case, public funding has also gone into these large pharmaceutical companies. I note that in respect of the one company about which the Commissioner has expressed concerns, namely, AstraZeneca, around €336 million in public money was pumped into that pharmaceutical company to develop and help with the production of the vaccine. How much public money from Europe has gone into the pharmaceutical companies in the development of the vaccines?

I also wish to ask the Commissioner about the waiving of intellectual property rights. I sit on another Oireachtas Committee, the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence. We have seen evidence, and it is widely acknowledged, that the cost of accessing vaccines in developing countries, for example, in Africa, is double that which EU member states are being charged.

I question whether the Union is concerned about dealing with this pandemic globally or is more interested in serving the needs of the large pharmaceutical companies and the profits they are making. I fundamentally believe that there should be no profit from the pandemic. Looking at this when the pandemic is over too late. This needs to be done now. I ask the Commissioner, the EU and the Government to sign up to initiatives such as CTAP and deal with intellectual property rights.