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

South Africa has done the world a favour by identifying the Omicron variant, and the way we repay them is that the European Union, with the support of the Taoiseach's Government, has consistently refused the calls from South Africa and many other nations, almost the entire global scientific community and many non-governmental organisations for the lifting of the intellectual property restrictions on Covid vaccines so that countries such as South Africa and other poorer countries can get the right to produce vaccines themselves, which they have been screaming for. It is utterly disgraceful now, as we face Omicron, that the European Commission continues with this position and the Irish Government supports it, putting the profits of the pharmaceutical companies ahead of the need to vaccinate the world. Will the Taoiseach revisit that position?

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