Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. Yesterday, there was an informal meeting of the World Trade Organization trade-related and intellectual property rules, TRIPS, council. Next week, there will be a formal meeting at which the WTO will decide on a proposal for a temporary TRIPS waiver of intellectual property rights for Covid-19 vaccines, which would allow global south countries to scale up production and access to vaccines. This proposal is being brought by the World Health Organization and over 100 countries. I ask the Minister of State the position Ireland is taking on that proposal and the advocacy and engagement we are having with the European Commission on the position it will take at that crucial meeting on 30 April.

Months ago, the head of the World Health Organization warned us of the dangers of catastrophic moral failure. We know from Oxfam that nations with 14% of the world's population had 53% of the vaccines. The distribution of vaccines is not the really crucial issue, however. The crucial issue is the fact there is a limitation on supply. That limitation is not natural. It is a choice to limit the manufacture and supply of Covid-19 vaccines to protect profits. It is an artificial scarcity and a choice.

That choice is having a consequence. Around the world, deaths are escalating. Yesterday, there were 2,000 deaths in India and 2,000 deaths in Brazil. In India, just 1% of the population has been vaccinated. Those are choices. People are dying younger and the consequences are more severe. It is important to note the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence, in its report on the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines for developing countries, was clear that if we do not provide equitable access, it will prolong the pandemic.They also explicitly identified the TRIPS waiver as a mechanism which we should support, especially given that a similar waiver was crucial in combating AIDS and HIV in the past. It is important to remember that while a substantial portion of the world's population remains vulnerable to Covid-19, those are ideal grounds for the virus to develop new variants and grounds for experimentation for the virus. Those new variants will ultimately affect all of us. Many scientists say it could be six months or a year before there is a variant that is resistant to vaccines. That is unless we remove access to a significant portion of the world's population for this virus and its variants, something which we can choose to do if we scale up global manufacturing of vaccines. A significant portion of the money for developing these vaccines was public investment. The AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine received 97% public funding, Moderna was majority public funding, and Pfizer-BioNTech received €500 million from Germany alone. The public have invested in these vaccines and they must now be treated as a public good. This is one of the key moral decisions we will ever face.

There are structures in place through the Covid technology access programme, run by the World Health Organization, to ensure an appropriate, proper mechanism for the sharing of access and the roll-out of the know-how and technology. That is there and waiting. There is demand from more than half the world for us to take action. Will the Minister of State tell me two quick things? At yesterday's informal meeting, what position did Ireland push for on the TRIPS waiver? At the meeting on 30 April, will Ireland advocate for support for a TRIPS waiver? Will we contact the European Commission to ensure that it takes that position? I hope that the Minister of State is able to tell me that we will be doing the right thing.