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

I am sharing time with Deputy Paul Murphy. I have one very specific question which the Minister probably will not have an answer today so I ask him to bank it and come back to me on it. The Minister will be aware of the concern expressed by the South African Government in regard to the efficacy of the AstraZeneca vaccine in terms of the variant in that country. I have been contacted by at least two healthcare workers here who are working with people who are quarantining following their arrival into this country and who are concerned they may come into contact with that variant and will be offered the AstraZeneca vaccine rather than the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. I ask the Minister to respond as to whether that is a just concern.

The following is the main point I want to make. The problem in this country and across the world is there is not enough vaccine. People need to know that a significant contributory factor in that regard is the greed of the vaccine producers in terms of profit and their refusal, as is being demanded by the People's Vaccine Alliance, to share the formula and intellectual property that would allow other vaccine producers to produce vaccine in large quantities. Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca are only planning to produce enough vaccine for one third of the world's population between them, most of which is being sold to the rich countries. The biggest manufacturers of vaccines in the world are barely producing any, either because they do not want to or because they are not being given the mechanisms to do it. According to UNICEF, only 46% of global capacity to produce Covid-19 vaccines is being utilised because of problems around intellectual property rights. This is a disgrace and it threatens to undermine the vaccine effort on a global level.

The three largest vaccine producers in the world have bases in this country and could produce vaccines but they are not doing so. That is an outrage. As the Minister is aware, there is a global campaign, supported by Oxfam, UNICEF, and many others calling for the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, TRIPS, to be suspended at the World Trade Organization meeting in March, which would allow for a dramatic ramping up of vaccine production. Does the Minister support the People's Vaccine Alliance campaign and will he call for the suspension of the intellectual property rights of monopolies over the right to produce these vaccines at the WTO meeting? I would like a direct answer to that question.

See this speech in context