Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his comments. I recall that in the summer when we introduced restrictions that were equivalent to level 3 in counties Laois, Offaly and Kildare, which people may forget as things are moving so quickly, there was anger at the time, and understandably so. Those level 3 restrictions had an impact on that occasion, in terms of reducing the spread of the virus in those locations. Interestingly, I just saw comments from the chief medical officer in Northern Ireland that the measures taken in the Derry and Strabane areas, which were equivalent to level 3, appear to have had an impact in terms of reducing the number of cases, although it is early days. That is something that we need to follow in terms of how it might inform us.

On the vaccine question, the Government is part of an EU advanced purchase procurement agreement so we are part of an EU approach. Under that, the EU has already entered into agreements with Oxford University and AstraZeneca, for example. We are part of that and we make a financial contribution, having signed off on it. Yesterday the Cabinet took decisions to participate in agreements with Sanofi Pasteur, GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals and Janssen.

The EU is currently exploring other options with additional vaccine manufacturers, including with CureVac for the initial purchase of 225 million doses on behalf of the all the EU member states. Exploratory talks between Moderna and the European Commission are under way for the purchase of 800 million doses on behalf all EU member states as are talks with BioNTech-Pfizer for the initial purchase of 200 million doses on behalf of all EU member states. Three are more or less signed off on and there are three more on which talks are currently under way between the European Union and the pharmaceutical companies.

As part of the European Union's vaccination strategy, it is helping countries to prepare their vaccination campaigns so we asked at the European Council meeting two weeks ago to co-ordinate priority distribution of the vaccine. When one vaccinates, who does one vaccinate first? Will it be similar to the flu vaccination programme where it is the elderly and those who are compromised who need it initially? That is ongoing. In other words, it is about a fair distribution and that the most vulnerable get priority. It is about safe, affordable and effective vaccines. A vaccine on its own is not a panacea. There will be challenges when it arrives. The effectiveness of the vaccine is important.

In terms of our situation domestically, early in September I visited APC. All these companies, including Pfizer, have locations in Ireland but the manufacturing is not occurring here. I met with Pfizer recently in Cork, more generally about its operations in Ireland. Pfizer was reasonable confident about the prospect of it having a vaccine by the end of the year. That has been widely reported, so that is not news.

APC is an award wining Irish pharmaceutical research and development company supported by Enterprise Ireland. I met with it in early September. It has developed the manufacturing technology. It is working with an Australian biotechnology firm, Vaxine Pty, which is working on a vaccine as well. That is interesting and I take the Deputy's point in this regard. Enterprise Ireland is supporting that company with a view that it can increase its capacity so that should a vaccine or vaccines arrive, it would be able to assist the global manufacturing effort because it will take an enormous manufacturing effort globally to get enough vaccines to vaccinate everyone in the world. That is an interesting company with an interesting technology that could be of great value to these companies which are currently researching and producing vaccines because it could add manufacturing capacity to them.

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