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

The President of the Commission spoke to me the night before last and told me about those 29 million doses. From my understanding, they emanated from the Halix plant in the Netherlands and some of them had the potential to be used for COVAX, while some of them could have been heading for the UK or Europe. There are two issues here. The first is the failure of AstraZeneca to fulfil its contracts with the European Union. I fully support all measures designed to ensure that AstraZeneca fulfils its contracts with the European Union.

In addition, however, I am very strongly adhering and committed to the principle of keeping open supply chains. That is the most fundamental way to guarantee supply, particularly in quarter 2. I have had a series of meetings with the four key manufacturing companies, all of which, especially Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech and Johnson & Johnson, are adamant that the supply chains must be kept open.

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