Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We are working towards that. The Ukraine situation will see refugees coming in. We have to recognise it will be additional and it will be very different from anything that has happened before, given the numbers of people arriving in a short period. I believe we should be very pleased with the manner in which we have responded and the openness and willingness shown not just by Irish people but by the community and all of the people of our country together. The Government has also shown a real clearness and openness to respond and to make that additional support and funding available to Ukrainians coming to our country. That is where we will be. I do not think there will be an impact in regard to the other programmes the Deputy mentioned.

I want to take a little time on the vaccine equality issue and the TRIPS waiver. I believe we have a very good and working system at the moment in terms of COVAX and the delivery of vaccines. From the experience I have had travelling in Africa in the last couple of weeks and travelling before that, there is now a large amount of vaccines available. However, although we in Ireland have an incredibly good track record on this, in terms of the next stage of getting vaccination to work, it is very important to develop the whole-of-health systems that enable vaccination programmes to roll out and to support countries to enable them to deliver vaccine programmes. There is no question that there were very strong views in regard to TRIPS but, given what is happening in, say, South Africa, where we had the establishment of production facilities funded and supported by the EU, we have wide vaccine availability.

We now have a couple of key tasks, as the World Health Organization has been pointing out. These are to tackle vaccine hesitancy and to ensure health systems are able to deliver on the ground so people can access vaccines. That is an area where we have worked. We have made a large amount of vaccines available directly through COVAX and bilaterally. We have funded, through the COVAX system in particular, the key part of what is needed in 2022 if we are to reach the 70% target we are setting, that is, to get that whole-of-health system support in place so that, as well as the actual availability of vaccine, the systems are available to deliver it and combat the resistance that is there.

It surprised me during some recent visits to listen to the outright hostility and negativity to vaccination within countries for a variety of reasons. That is something we have to work on. We have good experience through the Global Fund and the work we have done through that on AIDS, TB and malaria in regard to how we actually build programmes. In a meeting which I had with them the other day, they talked about that key importance, which we support, of building health systems from the ground up. We build from the community up so there is buy-in and acceptance of the programme, whereas the top-down delivery programmes do not always enable the most successful outcome. We are determined to work in that area to ensure we achieve our vaccine targets throughout world. To go back to that old adage that I alluded to in a different way in my opening remarks, no one is safe until everyone is safe, so that is very important.

I think I have covered most aspects.