Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I find this debate deeply upsetting.It is a disgrace that we even have to have a debate because, to me, this is a no-brainer. It is not a trade issue but a human rights issue. I am a member of the Joint Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment which wanted to discuss this issue. I wondered why that committee would discuss it when it is a human rights issue. I do not know why it falls under enterprise, trade and employment, which is a shallow place to put this significant issue.

For those who do not know - it took me a while to get my head around it - TRIPS stands for trade-related aspects of intellectual property, IP, rights. It is too important an issue to use the acronym all the time. Nearly two years after the pandemic commenced, flexibilities within the TRIPS Agreement, including compulsory licensing, have not been used by any country to increase production of vaccines despite many experienced manufacturers around the world being ready and willing to make hundreds of millions of doses, including in places such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, Senegal, Denmark and Canada. In fact, generic pharmaceutical companies, such as Biolyse Pharma in Canada, and leading academic experts in intellectual property law, such as Dr. Aisling McMahon of Maynooth University with whom I had a meeting last week, and Dr. Luke McDonagh of the London School of Economics, have outlined why this approach is not suitable. It involves a cumbersome, inefficient, time-consuming and complicated legal process involving hundreds of patents and must be repeated using a country-by-country, patent-by-patent approach. That is ridiculous in the middle of a global pandemic. It does not address other key IP rights for vaccines such as trade secrets. A compulsory licence arrangement would give permission for the production of vaccines only after a timely legal process, while people are dying every day, but would not empower generic producers to be given the relevant blueprints on how to produce the vaccines.

A growing number of voices on the international stage are beginning to recognise the urgency with which this issue needs to be addressed. As Senators know, last week the European Parliament voted in favour of a resolution calling on the EU to support the granting of a TRIPS waiver to enhance timely global access to affordable Covid-19 vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics by addressing global production constraints and supply shortages. It reminds me George Orwell's words that all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.

Pfizer will make €36 billion profit from Covid vaccines this year. The Government has given €7 million to COVAX, as Senator Joe O'Reilly pointed out earlier. Let us imagine what that €7 million could have done if it had been given to countries to build manufacturing plants. They could have done that by now given that the pandemic has been going on for nearly two years. We know the saying, "Do not give a man a fish; give him a fishing rod". That is what we should be doing. That is what this is all about at the end of the day. It is not about condescending rich countries giving other countries some money but about seeing them as equals. That is what is happening here. We do not see them as humans or as equals. In 2021, it is an absolute disgrace. Thanks to social media, we can see what is happening all over the world. We know this is wrong and unfair.

The TRIPS waiver is dividing people. We know how it worked with the AIDS virus. This has nothing to do with the EU or what it is saying. As a country and a people, we know what it is like when people do not get what they need. We know that from the Famine. This should not be debated. I know I am a Government Senator but this TRIPS waiver is really important. It is so sad that we have to argue about it because everybody cares about humans. Our job as Government politicians is to show that we care about people. On the TRIPS waiver, people have to look into their hearts and ask how we can justify objecting to this, which would be wrong.

It would be great to see Ireland leading the way on this, as we have done in many other situations all around the world. I ask those in government who are opposed to the TRIPS waiver for whatever reason - I do not care what it is - to look into their hearts and ask themselves to think about morals and ethics in this instance. We are all humans and we are all equal, from the cleaning lady to the woman with eight kids in South Africa. It does not make a difference who we are. There is no debate on this. We are all equal and deserve this vaccine or, at least, the choice to take it.

I heard someone from Oxfam say that the vaccines that we, the great people of the West and the rich countries, donate often arrive out of date and cannot be used. It is a joke. We have to get this right. It is too important, even if we are being completely selfish for our own reasons. I know we are an island but we will not stop people from coming here. If we do not sort this out globally, we will never sort it out nationally. That is the bottom line. Even if we do not care about anybody else, we have to do this for ourselves.

As I said, we do not live in an Orwellian. All animals are equal; all humans are equal.