Dáil debates

Wednesday, 31 March 2021

Post-European Council Meeting: Statements

 

4:05 pm

Photo of Cathal CroweCathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have a slightly different take on aspects of this discussion. We are living every day according to NIAC, NPHET and the HSE. These entities are part of everyday parlance and every time we turn on the television or radio, we hear figures and statistics. Mother ship Europe also has a co-ordinating agency, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, ECDC, based in Stockholm. The ECDC is an alarmingly small agency, with only 300 staff. RTÉ just up the road from us has six times that number of employees. The centre runs on an annual budget of €50 million whereas its US equivalent runs an annual budget of $12 billion. It should come as no surprise that an agency set up in the aftermath of the SARS outbreak in 2002 is, 18 years on, a rather inept mother ship organisation trying to steer every other European Union nation. This proves that the HSE, the NHS and all the national agencies are outperforming mother ship Europe. Something drastic needs to be looked at in that regard.

The European Space Agency operates with an annual budget of €6.7 billion. That is a European fund for sending rockets into space. There is plenty of merit to scientific discovery, but perhaps that European Union budget could be channelled back into public healthcare for this year. I believe that is necessary.

The EU also needs to find out if it has the scientific knowledge in its expert laboratories throughout the member states to allow it, as a political bloc, to have its own vaccine creating and roll-out capacities. We are fully reliant on third parties and companies. We have seen that AstraZeneca has completely let us down. I ask the Minister of State to consider that.

We also need to look at novel approaches. Time and again in the past three decades, governments in Norway, which is not in the EU bloc, have identified key strategic companies in which to become a stakeholder. The EU also needs to consider that approach. Perhaps there could be less money for space rockets this year and more money for jabs into people's arms to save lives.

The Minister of State is leading on the digital green certificate in Europe, for which I thank him. We cannot get there quick enough. This is a pathway back to safe international air travel. Ireland, more than any other country, has the most to lose by not signing up and investing everything in this regulation.

I have mixed feelings about quarantine. It stymies the spread of aggressive new Covid strains such as the B117 variant that is ravaging Europe at the moment, putting many people in hospital and causing deaths. On the other hand, there is an inherent inflexibility in quarantine. It is time Europe and third countries such as the United States and United Kingdom started striking bilateral deals with regard to people coming to Ireland who have been vaccinated. A lady in Clare contacted me today. She is a dual citizen of the US and Ireland and has been vaccinated. She is getting mixed messaging on quarantining. The EU and Ireland now need to strike some urgent bilateral deals with other countries to ensure the number of people going into quarantine is minimal. Quarantine is necessary but not for the masses. We want to see safe, Covid-free international air travel. The digital green certificate is one crucial way to achieving that but a number of bilateral deals need to be struck also.

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