Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Deputy McDonald spoke about vaccine sharing, the TRIPS waiver and so forth. I argue that the European Union has been the leader across the globe in respect of vaccine donation. It is the largest donor, ahead of the United States, Russia, India and any other country or continent for that matter. It has made an extraordinary effort not to have any export bans at any stage, despite some efforts in the early stages of the pandemic. We might remember all the rows with AstraZeneca and all of that. I pushed hard for there to be no export bans because of the global supply chain that goes into making vaccines.

The EU and its constituent member states is the leading donor, having committed €3.2 billion for the equitable distribution of vaccines. Out of 2 billion doses produced since December 2020, the European Union has exported over 1.7 billion doses to 165 countries. Some of those were countries that were contracted to companies manufacturing within Europe. Ireland is committing 5 million doses to COVAX and 1.3 million vaccines have been delivered to low-income countries.

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