Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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38. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment further to Parliamentary Question No. 112 of 13 December 2022, if he will provide a status update on his engagement at WTO and European Union level on the proposal to extend the 17 June 2022 decision of the WTO on the TRIPS agreement to cover Covid-19 therapeutics and diagnostic tests; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9089/23]

Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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Since the Ministerial Conference in June 2022, the WTO TRIPS Council held discussions on whether to extend the ‘Ministerial Decision on the TRIPS Agreement’ to cover the production and supply of COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics. However, no consensus could be reached by WTO Member States by the mandated deadline of the 17th December 2022. Acting on a request from Member States, the WTO General Council decided to extend discussions on this matter into 2023. Discussions on this matter have not yet commenced but are expected to reconvene in Q1 of 2023.

As previously stated in response to Parliamentary Question No. 112 of 13 December 2022, the EU is conducting its own analysis on the extension, taking into consideration that the case for COVID-19 therapeutics and diagnostics is more complex than the one pertaining to vaccines. This analysis has highlighted that there are multiple factors that affect both access to and uptake of therapeutics and diagnostics, such as regulatory matters, demand, funding of health systems and procurement issues.

The EU supports the continuation of the WTO discussions and the extension of the deadline in which to complete discussions. When discussions reconvene on this matter, Ireland will engage constructively with the European Commission and other Member States on the EU position for the WTO discussions.