Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

The continued refusal of the EU to back the TRIPS waiver of intellectual property on Covid vaccines is an absolute scandal. It is a clear example of profit before people. It is about protecting the intellectual property and rights of the big pharmaceutical companies. It is about doing that now so they can profit from the Covid vaccines in the future. More fundamentally, it is about protecting their intellectual property and their rights to intellectual property in future because they fear conceding at this point on the morality of ensuring the world is vaccinated, as the health of the entire world population needs the rapid roll-out of vaccines, which means generic production and distribution throughout the world. They fear if they were to accept this, then, rightly, at the next point, in terms of AIDS medicine, hepatitis medicine or whatever, people would ask why the big pharmaceutical companies get to withhold and restrict the production of these, putting their own profits first.

I also have to say the Government, the EU and the US like to hide behind COVAX. COVAX is a completely inadequate response to the crisis. It is about them being able to say they are giving the vaccines to those who need them, while defending the essentials of the intellectual property. What they do not speak about are the non-transparent agreements between these countries and the pharmaceutical companies. What they also do not speak about is the fact COVAX is only designed at its best to provide one in five of those who need it with vaccines in the fewer than 100 countries selected. It is completely inadequate and the poorest countries in the world have to buy more vaccines on the international market.

I also want to make a point on the horrific homophobic actions of the far-right Hungarian Government. We should remember the leading party, Fidesz, led by Viktor Orbán, was a sister party of Fine Gael until earlier this year, when it chose to leave the European People's Party. In government it has attacked workers' rights. It has attacked the rights of the Roma people. It has engaged in quite disgusting racism against them and against migrants and in spreading anti-Semitism.

LGBTQ+ people have consistently been in the sights of the Hungarian Government as targets of discrimination and oppression. The latest attack is a law that bans the portrayal of homosexuality among those aged under 18. It means no gay people in advertisements. It means no sex education relating to LGBTQ people. It means sex education will be carried out only by agencies approved by this ultraconservative Government. We can obviously guess what kind of agencies those will be. One of the most disgusting parts of this is how the Hungarian Government, in a classic right-wing trope which we have also seen in this country, links the question of homosexuality with paedophilia in a disgusting attempt to slur and slander LGBTQ+ people. Its aim very clearly is to push gay people out of public life and make them feel ashamed and to legitimise widespread homophobia in society.

In the context of this law, the repression that exists and the violence against LGBTQ+ people, which is positively encouraged by the right-wing Hungarian Government, I salute, pay tribute to and express solidarity with LGBTQ+ activists within Hungary who have continued to fight for their rights, to stand out and to organise Pride events in the course of this week, and who say they are willing to do so even if it means civil disobedience. The question is what will the EU do about this. We have heard strong words of condemnation but what will the EU do about it? It is well able to talk about democracy and human rights but in terms of action, the only action the EU ever takes in terms of anything that happens within its borders is when governments, countries or states go against the EU neoliberal fiscal orthodoxy or threaten to do so.

We had the example of Ireland being told a bomb would go off, not in Frankfurt but in Dublin, if an attempt was made to burn the bondholders. We saw the power of the European Central Bank used to strangle the Greek banking system because Greece had the temerity to elect a government which had a mandate to reject austerity, though it did not follow through on that mandate. However, again and again, we see no action on human rights, democratic rights or opposition to oppression within the EU.

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