Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Perhaps I can kill two birds with one stone by getting an answer to my previous question. In the context of the shared island initiative, a shared vaccine programme would be an immediate way of giving us common cause, North and South, to deal with the pandemic and get us out of the cycle of lockdowns. The Taoiseach should take that idea very seriously. As I said earlier - I would like to hear the Taoiseach's response on this point - the question of intellectual property rights surrounding vaccines is already emerging as a potential block to their roll-out. Ireland, North and South, is in quite a strong position to influence this because of our relationship with the new US President and the significant position of the pharmaceutical industry in this county. We need to be saying, as the United Nations is saying at this time, that intellectual property rights, that is, protections around making profit from new scientific technologies, should simply not apply in the face of a pandemic and the urgent need to roll out a vaccine. We should discuss this issue with our Northern counterparts and with the US President. Does the Taoiseach agree that profit and intellectual property rights should not get in the way of the roll-out of a vaccine?

I was very pleased to meet recently with the Ireland Future group. Its proposal is for an all-Ireland constitutional assembly on Ireland's future and looking at uniting the island on a different basis. It has to be a different, better Ireland and it must be about a new future, not just an amalgamation of the two existing states that were so damaged by partition. We would be making a damn good start in that regard if we worked together on delivering a solution to the pandemic by making sure big business does not get in the way of the roll-out of a vaccine.

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