Eighteen years ago last April, I had a meeting with the Taoiseach, then Minister for Health and Children, and Deirdre Gillane, along with Margaret Best, with regard to a no-fault vaccine compensation scheme. The Government has decided to introduce indemnity for the five vaccine companies that are coming forward with a Covid-19 vaccine. I ask the Taoiseach when we will see a no-fault compensation scheme introduced here. We are one of the few countries in Europe now where children and families have to go to court and prove beyond reasonable doubt that the vaccine they took has had an impact on them, yet we still will not introduce a compensation scheme here. If we are going to give medical indemnity to the vaccine companies, why are we forcing families to go to the courts to get their rights and the compensation that they need?

I call Deputy Mattie McGrath on the same matter.

I note also that the Government has indemnified all these big pharmaceutical companies. I know of people in my constituency, as I am sure do other Members, if they are honest, who have been affected by vaccines. I know that many young children in constituencies were affected by the human papillomavirus, HPV, vaccine and they had to fight all the way through the courts to get compensation. Why will the Taoiseach not give them some kind of indemnity or supports? We will have a debate about this Covid-19 vaccine but people are frightened for their lives because they have seen what happened in terms of a list of vaccines over the years and the damage and trauma caused to families, as well as the cost. They were pushed aside by the State while the big pharmaceutical companies walked off into the sunset. Why do those companies have to be indemnified? They have the money and the power. The families do not have the money, power or the wherewithal but they have a very sick child or other family member as a result of taking a vaccine and they have tried to prove that at a huge cost. Why will the Taoiseach not indemnify those families?

Let us get the context clear here. The first point is that we are dealing with a virus that has killed people all over the world, and it continues to kill people.

Approximately 1.5 million people have died globally as a result of Covid-19. Governments themselves do not produce vaccines or medicines. There are no state pharmaceutical factories anywhere that I am aware of. Some states may have them but there may be dubious issues around that too. In this case, there has been a strong collaboration between Governments, whether the United States Government or the European Union, collectively, working with pharmaceutical companies with a view to researching, producing and developing a vaccine quickly relative to what would have happened in the past. It uses existing technologies developed over the years in many instances but parts of that package include pre-purchasing, to enable the financial wherewithal to fund the upfront costs of developing a vaccine, as well as the indemnity, which was important in making sure that we could go all-out to get this vaccine developed and procured. That is the context. On Deputy Naughten's point, the Government is working on a no-fault compensation scheme. As the Deputy is aware, a working group had been established for that. We are committed to bringing one in.