Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change) | Oireachtas source

In response to a question from Deputy Gannon last week about the proposal for a Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, TRIPS, Covid waiver at the WTO, the Tánaiste told the House that a TRIPS waiver was not enough to do what needed to be done and that the best thing we could do was to work together with industry to license this intellectual property to the global south and help to build the necessary factories and provide the money and know-how to do these things. There is a WHO initiative, the coronavirus treatment acceleration programme, CTAP, which tries to do exactly what the Tánaiste claims is needed. It was introduced in May 2020, but the Government and most of the pharmaceutical industry have still not endorsed it. Will the Government finally say that it will support a waiver and the CTAP? There is an urgency to get people in this country vaccinated, but there does not seem to be the same urgency about getting the rest of the world vaccinated, and that needs to happen for us to be protected.

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