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

This business of attacking the Opposition and accusing it of sloganeering really has to stop. I do not think the Taoiseach would accuse Dr. Mike Ryan of being a left-wing sloganeer, but he is supporting the people's vaccine. Médecins sans Frontières and UN aid agencies are supporting the people's vaccine. Many of the countries that for years suffered the consequences of the refusal of big pharmaceutical companies to share the combination therapies to deal with AIDS and HIV until they were forced to back down by a popular movement that demanded those intellectual property rights and patents restrictions were removed, which helped us actually get on top of the AIDS crisis, are saying the situation is exactly the same here.

Let us be clear. The Taoiseach mentioned a compromise. Why do the big vaccine-producing companies not want to share the technology? I ask the Taoiseach to tell me why. We all know the answer. They do not want to share the technology with other places that have the capacity to produce vaccines because it would impinge on their profits. Let us remember that it was public money, through those advance orders, to the order of €6 billion, that actually paid for the development of those vaccines. That is how they were able to do it. It was public money that paid for it. Public health and defeating the pandemic should come ahead of the profit hunger of these big vaccine producers. The Taoiseach should take a clear position in calling for the TRIPS waiver to be introduced.

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