Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is nice to see the Minister. He is welcome, as always. I begin by completely condemning the thugs who stood outside his house. I offer my solidarity to him on that point.

We are short on time and I want to be constructive. I will raise a few key issues. The first is probably the most important. We know that the World Trade Organization TRIPS council is meeting this week. To date, the Irish Government has opposed waiving intellectual property rights for Covid vaccines that would enable countries in the developing world to develop their own generic vaccines to vaccinate their population. Large parts of the world have a vaccination rate of just 2%.

When I raised this issue with the Minister previously he has told me he was in favour of waiving the intellectual property rights. The problem is that the Government is not in favour of that approach. We know that to date, and right up until today, the Government and large sections of the EU have opposed the waiving of intellectual property rights. I want to hear the Minister state clearly that the Government will endorse and publicly call for the waiving of those intellectual property rights. I ask him to provide clarity on that point.If the Minister is not going to support it then he should tell us straight that he is not going to support it. That conversation is happening this week at the WTO TRIPS council. I will be honest: the Irish public want to see a much better response from this Government on this key issue. The new variant brings it home to us like never before, nobody is safe until everybody is safe. For too long, the Government has been on the wrong side of this particular argument.