James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, and the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, for being here today. The Minister spoke earlier about the need for a global solution to the Covid-19 crisis and he is right about that. I have put questions to him multiple times in the House and made statements on matters pertaining to Covid. An issue with which I am quite disappointed at a European level is the EU's attitude to a multilateral approach to research in the area of antigen testing and having a set antigen strategy across the Union. We know we are going to be in a situation where we cannot get our entire population inoculated during 2021. There is a significant risk that this entire year will be lost because of the Covid-19 pandemic. That is neither the Minister's fault nor that of any Minister in the Government. However, we should be trying to invest in research into ways in which we can give people the ability to live alongside this virus to some degree.

Antigen testing offers a channel to do that. I cannot understand why it is not being done at a European level. When the Minister is at the next meeting of the Council of Europe with his health ministerial colleagues, will he put that point to them? I also ask that he feed back the disappointment I have as a parliamentarian, which I am sure others in this House share, regarding the EU's performance in the area of Covid. It has not been up to scratch and the Commission has let us down quite badly. I say that as somebody who is a proud European and very much in favour of the European project. We need to feed the message back that the EU has not lived up to our expectations and it must do more.

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