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

There were a broad range of questions. I would say at the outset it would be interesting if Deputy Tóibín followed up that story on Israel. How many vaccines will those countries get in the next month from Israel or the month after that or the month after that? That is the point. There will be no immediate dividend from that particular venture any time soon in terms of additional vaccines, because Israel is vaccinating its own country and will continue to do so. The reality is, as I have stated here repeatedly today, the key to this is increased production and manufacturing capacity.

We have taken on all our full offerings from the European Union in the pre-purchase agreements in respect of the companies that have so far been authorised, namely, Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca. AstraZeneca has not fulfilled its contractual commitments to the European Union. It has fallen very significantly short of its contractual commitments to Europe. That has caused considerable annoyance within the European Union and resulted, as we know, in the decision by the Commission in respect of the protocol and so on, so angry was the Commission at the time at the degree to which AstraZeneca had not fulfilled its contractual obligations. The next company will be Johnson & Johnson but it has been clear that it will be April before it will be issuing supplies to the European Union, even though it will be authorised soon by the European Medicines Agency.

We have approached Pfizer. I approached Pfizer here in Ireland. I made it clear to the Pfizer corporation that Ireland would be willing to support in any way any reconfiguration of any plant in Ireland to generate additional vaccine production. Most of the pharmaceutical companies in Ireland are involved in the production of very valuable medicines, and indeed vaccines, for use elsewhere in respect of different diseases globally. We made that offer but, as I said earlier, Pfizer has come back and stated that it is concentrating on the Belgian plant. It reconfigured that Belgian plant and has increased its capacity, as well as in Marburg, Germany, in terms of its work with BioNTech, which has also substantially increased production and supply lines and will continue to do so.

In terms of Johnson & Johnson, for example, President Biden brought Merck and J&J together. I immediately spoke with our IDA Ireland people and asked whether we could get that deal in Ireland, that is, could J&J and Merck coalesce in respect of their plants in Ireland to increase manufacturing capacity. Again, the answer was that would not be happening here because of what is going on in Carlow, for example, in the Merck plant, and the commitments the company has there and in terms of other plants. Anything we can do to support the companies in terms of increasing production and capacity, and utilising Irish manufacturing capacity towards that end, we will do. If that means state aid support, we are open to doing that. We have made that clear to all of the companies and will continue to do that.

We should not get into an ideological position on intellectual property and should be mindful of the questions that need to be asked as to why AstraZeneca has found a certain difficulty in fulfilling its contracts. Arrangements have been agreed and we are not deferring to big pharma or anything like that.

One of the great achievements that has been missed in all of the debate and narrative is that within ten months, because of the pre-purchase agreements and the funding upfront that enabled the development of the vaccines, we had the extraordinary situation where we actually had three vaccines authorised in ten months. This would never have happened before in the history of the development of vaccines. That is a plus. The model that was used may not meet with Deputy Boyd Barrett’s ideological approach but it actually has worked in the production and development of vaccines that have been very effective in reducing severe illness and mortality and are increasingly showing evidence of reducing infection rates.

I grant that there is an issue with the performance of AstraZeneca in respect of the UK market and the European contract. That is a fair point and the delivery to the UK market from AstraZeneca needs to be examined further as it is in sharp contrast with the fulfilment of its contract with the European Union.

After Johnson & Johnson, we are hoping that CureVac will come on stream and we have not factored that into any figures towards the end of the second quarter. That will be another important additional vaccine.

On the travel proposals, the European Commission has issued a communication on what it is calling a green pass. We are not yet at that stage because public health is cautious regarding the longer term efficacy and utilisation of the passports. There are also civil liberties issues related to the rights of citizens, for example, in making it imperative to have a passport to do various things in society and to travel.

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