Mr. Feargal O'Connell:

Absolutely. We work with many of the research institutes across Africa which have the local knowledge. What is needed is the technology transfer and that is somewhere the Irish agrifood companies could play a huge role.

Returning to the Chairman's point on Covid-19, progress was being made. We did see major metrics improving around maternal mortality and poverty rates across the continent. They have been reversed because of Covid and there is no sign of that changing. We have to cognisant of the fact that actions we take within the eurozone or within the globalised north have a very long tail in Africa. The debt crises which are happening right now, the pressures the currencies are under, the soaring rates of inflation in many countries in Africa that are putting basic foodstuffs beyond the reach of ordinary people, are the long tail of Covid. Moreover, we are not learning the lessons. A treaty negotiation is going on right now in the WHO to prepare for the next pandemic and the sticking points are exactly where one would expect them to be. Countries in the global south are looking for guarantees around the sharing of vaccines, relaxing of patents and direct supports in the case of another pandemic but those assurances and commitments are not translating into the treaty, unfortunately. The result of that is that countries in the global south are now refusing to share samples of things such as bird flu in Indonesia and so on. We are seeing a breakdown in co-operation around pandemic preparedness four years after the last pandemic was prepared for. It is all about protecting things like IP rights in the global north.