Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I would like to follow on from the contribution of the leader of the Labour Party on vaccine distribution. We run a real risk of increasing competition between countries and countries' nationalism when it comes to the vaccination programme. We are not safe in this country until every country is safe, and we will not be free from Covid until every country in the world is free from Covid. We can see the new variants coming into play and that will always be a risk for us, no matter how many people we get vaccinated in Ireland or in all the other countries of the EU and in the likes of the UK and the US.

When the Taoiseach meets the EU leaders or talks to them tomorrow, I would like him to raise the issue of the vaccine waiver. The director-general of the World Health Organization has stated it will be a "catastrophic moral failure" if we do not open the intellectual property rights and enable developing countries to develop vaccine themselves. A number of Irish organisations have written to the Government in respect of this, such as Oxfam, Amnesty International and Dóchas.

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