Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Two years after a pandemic was declared, we have an inequitable system in relation to vaccines. The European Commission has led a system that has facilitated profiteering by private companies with public money and a total indemnity against any possible cause of action against them in relation to trial vaccines. Then we blamed other countries and said they had not the capacity when that was illustrated to be totally false. Now we are going down the road of a supposed compromise, which the committee, after hearing the evidence recently, has pointed out is not the way to go. Professor Aisling McMahon has been mentioned and I do not have the time to go through what she highlighted. The Minister of State should read it. I do not accept this model of profiteering on public money for the benefit of companies when the approach should be what happened in relation to AIDS and the generic production of essential vaccines.

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