Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Did the Taoiseach discuss with President Biden the issue of the TRIPS waiver for vaccine technology and vaccine formulae? Even the United States Government, as I have pointed out to the Taoiseach previously, has used wartime legislation to direct private companies to do certain things to respond to the coronavirus. This is in the heart of capitalism, if we like. It does not go far enough as far as I am concerned but even the US understands the need to use emergency measures to tell for-profit commercial companies what they had to do in response to the coronavirus. Shockingly, the Government and the European Union are dancing to the tune of the vaccine producing companies that do not want to share the vaccine formulae and technology with countries such as India and others where we see disaster unfold.

It is morally obscene when we know that in order to see the back of this pandemic, we need the world vaccinated. The awful terrifying cost of that is being seen in countries such as India, notwithstanding, by the way, the shocking right-wing irresponsible attitude of the Indian Government, which was like Trump and Bolsonaro. Nonetheless, it is unconscionable that Europe is holding out against a waiver of intellectual property on vaccines.

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