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

I repeat to the Minister of State that as we go to the European Council, the question of ensuring a safe and effective vaccine is available to everybody in the world is critical to the effectiveness of the vaccine anywhere in the world, including in this country. People, including European leaders, need to get that into their heads. We do not need a repeat of the disgraceful position with retroviral AIDS drugs, when poorer countries were pleading to have access to the technology to produce generic and cheap versions for distribution but big pharmaceutical companies did not want to do it because it would cut into profits.

That must not happen and I repeat my earlier call to the Taoiseach. We need the waiving of intellectual property and patent rights on vaccines so they can be available to everybody. All data must be published if we want to get over some of the misplaced scepticism, although there may be some understandable suspicion of some of the pharmaceutical companies rather than vaccines. There must be honesty, openness and transparency, as it is the best way to encourage people to take the vaccine. I will be first in the queue. There could be a very strong public health campaign to overcome scepticism, explaining how smallpox, polio and so on were eliminated because of vaccines. I underline this point in the strongest terms.

I will raise some particular matters for the attention of the European Council. We often hear the narrative that democratic reform is coming in Saudi Arabia and there was much trumpeting of how the country decided to allow women to apply for driving licences. What is said less is that the women who campaigned for women's rights in Saudi Arabia were subsequently imprisoned, almost certainly tortured and denied access to their families. In the case of Loujain al-Hathloul, she was moved to the terrorist court in Saudi Arabia on 25 November. This is a court that Amnesty International has indicated is essentially a tool for suppression of political dissent and where people are tried for crimes such as "disobeying the ruler", with heavy prison sentences and, in some cases, a death sentence.

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That is what is going on. Along with Loujain al-Hathloul we have Samar Badawi, Nouf Abdulaziz and Nassima al-Sadah. When Loujain al-Hathloul was brought into the court she was weak, shaking uncontrollably and her voice was faint and shaky. She was imprisoned for 21 to 22 years but has now been moved to this terrorist court. In October, eight youths, five of them minors, were brought to court and the Saudi prosecutor is seeking the death sentence for them for participating in demonstrations. This is despite the fact that Saudi Arabia is saying publicly that it is no longer going to seek the death sentence for young people. Seeking the death sentence for anybody is obscene, but especially for youths participating in demonstrations. We must remember, whatever the Saudis say, that this is the regime that murdered Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi embassy in Turkey. This stuff is still going on. When is the European Union going to speak about this, instead of mouthing nonsense narratives that Saudi Arabia is embracing democratic reform? This is what is going on as we speak and something needs to be done about it.

I also wish to raise a matter that might be of interest to Deputies Michael and Danny Healy-Rae. A woman from Kerry wrote to my office about her husband, who is from Ethiopia. He was trying to get Teaching Council accreditation but he did not have the right papers so he returned to Tigray in Ethiopia to get same. He is now trapped there because at the beginning of November, the Ethiopian Government began a vicious bombing campaign against Tigray. The region is completely blocked off and its inhabitants are subject to indiscriminate bombing. This has the potential to turn into an absolute humanitarian disaster. The bombing campaign is being headed up by the Ethiopian Prime Minister who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year. Deputies should think about that. The European Union and the Irish Government needs to call this out immediately. It must demand a stop to the bombing campaign and the safe return of people like Kathleen's husband to Kerry and more generally, the safety of all of the innocent people who are being subjected to this vicious campaign. I call on the Minister and all of those attending the European Council to raise these issues as a priority.

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