Mr. Oliver O'Connor:

In response to Senator Garvey, we too have high regard for NGOs in this area, particularly Irish NGOs, Oxfam and others that have a presence in the country. We respectfully disagree on the role of IP in the solution. The solution and desired outcome is for people's health to be protected, with a vaccination for those who need and want it around the world. Our industry is doing everything it can, as evidenced by the production, to deliver that. Our fundamental point remains, that a change to the TRIPS waiver is a change to the rules set up after the discussions on HIV. It changes the rules to IP protections. In some people's eyes, it would change the rules for everything, including production processes, the formula for the vaccine, therapeutics and so on. If the public sector, State and international organisations want and choose to proceed on that basis in the future, they are entitled to do so, but it changes the rules. We have not used words like "collapse".

We brought forward evidence from the European Patent Office. There has been a 37% drop in investments in this area. We think the rule change will have an effect. We caution that the idea that IP protections are a barrier to vaccination being made available is simply incorrect. Fundamentally, we want vaccinations to be developed. From my point of view, I can see how many companies will think twice about the level of investment they put into what is a risky venture on their part if they are told they will not have any rights to their production processes, formulation or anything else if they do this.