Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. The Government is working with the EU on this. I have told the Deputy what my view is. The Government is working through this very closely with our colleagues in the EU. The EU's position is that the WTO TRIPS Agreement already allows countries a lot of flexibility that is not being used. For example, it allows compulsory licensing, which is when a Government permits someone else to produce a patented product, which essentially is what Deputies Barry and Gino Kenny are advocating for. This is already contained within the TRIPS Agreement.

I restate that regardless of which way we do this, and whether nation states activate the clause within the existing WTO TRIPS Agreement or intellectual property rights were to be waived, there are significant additional obstacles that have to be dealt with. The EU is setting up a task force to look at this to see how we deal with increasing manufacturing. These are not simple compounds to make. How do we deal with distribution? How do we, for example, distribute vaccines that have to be stored at -20° in warm countries with limited infrastructure? All of this has to be solved at the same time to reach a necessary goal, which is as rapid a global vaccination as possible.

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