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

Unfortunately, too many Deputies reduce everything to a slogan or sound bite. It is not that simple and the Deputy should not pretend it is that simple either. One of the largest manufacturing sites is in India. AstraZeneca has been manufacturing in India and India has put a ban, of necessity, on any export from India. Earlier in this period, Europe thought it would be getting vaccines from India. Now we have to do everything we possibly can to help India. We are sending out materials etc. We will do whatever we can. We will support whatever is the correct policy approach. We have been strong supporters of the Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access, COVAX, programme. Europe is one of the largest contributors, if not the largest contributor.

In respect of the meeting with President Biden, at the time, in March, we did not discuss the intellectual property issue. The focus rather was on supply chains because the biggest barrier was on that whole manufacturing, production and supply chain area, in terms of getting a sufficient quantity of components to enable vaccines to be produced quickly. No matter where one goes in the world, all of those components will be required in that supply chain.

See this speech in context