There is a very important European summit tomorrow on vaccines. What will be the Taoiseach's strategy at that summit? I agree with him on vaccine nationalism, which I do not believe in, and I also do not believe in vaccine ingredient nationalism. However, I do believe in equity and fairness. I ask, therefore, that tomorrow, while we all fight to keep supply lines open and vaccines being produced for us and for those who need them most throughout the world, we also fight to ensure there is equity and fairness in the distribution of vaccines and the honouring of contracts, especially by companies such as AstraZeneca. Just a couple of hours ago, police entered a plant in Italy and found 29 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine there and available, potentially and probably to be exported to the UK.

Will the Taoiseach tomorrow ensure there is equity and fairness? While we do not want vaccine nationalism, we have to protect our citizens in Europe and Ireland. Will he ensure vaccines that were contracted will be honoured and that will be delivered on in the coming weeks before we have a change in circumstances whereby we allow vaccines to be exported en masse again?

The President of the Commission spoke to me the night before last and told me about those 29 million doses. From my understanding, they emanated from the Halix plant in the Netherlands and some of them had the potential to be used for COVAX, while some of them could have been heading for the UK or Europe. There are two issues here. The first is the failure of AstraZeneca to fulfil its contracts with the European Union. I fully support all measures designed to ensure that AstraZeneca fulfils its contracts with the European Union.

In addition, however, I am very strongly adhering and committed to the principle of keeping open supply chains. That is the most fundamental way to guarantee supply, particularly in quarter 2. I have had a series of meetings with the four key manufacturing companies, all of which, especially Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech and Johnson & Johnson, are adamant that the supply chains must be kept open.

I thank the Taoiseach. Time is up.

Briefly, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has 280 component parts, with 86 suppliers from 19 countries. If any aspect of that is impeded, it will potentially undermine our capacity to get vaccines.

I would like to follow on from the contribution of the leader of the Labour Party on vaccine distribution. We run a real risk of increasing competition between countries and countries' nationalism when it comes to the vaccination programme. We are not safe in this country until every country is safe, and we will not be free from Covid until every country in the world is free from Covid. We can see the new variants coming into play and that will always be a risk for us, no matter how many people we get vaccinated in Ireland or in all the other countries of the EU and in the likes of the UK and the US.

When the Taoiseach meets the EU leaders or talks to them tomorrow, I would like him to raise the issue of the vaccine waiver. The director-general of the World Health Organization has stated it will be a "catastrophic moral failure" if we do not open the intellectual property rights and enable developing countries to develop vaccine themselves. A number of Irish organisations have written to the Government in respect of this, such as Oxfam, Amnesty International and Dóchas.

Time is up, Deputy, please.

Will the Taoiseach raise that with the EU and push for it at an EU level? It is important we show leadership and we ensure every country in the world, whether wealthy or not, has an opportunity to access vaccine.

The Deputy is absolutely correct on the necessity to vaccinate the entire world. Otherwise, we will all become imprisoned in our own republics, so to speak, because of the potentiality of new variants over time. COVAX is one vehicle to enable us to do that. The European Union is, I think, the largest contributor to COVAX, and we have contributed pro rata to it and will continue to do so. The United States is increasing its contribution to COVAX as well.

We need to be realistic and to work with the models we have to increase and refine production and manufacturing. Right now, the supplies are increasing, the companies are getting better at what they are doing and more vaccines will potentially come on stream. In that context, the world needs to work together to increase supplies to developing countries. That is something Europe and the US are focused on and, indeed, China is doing some of that as well. That is what we-----

I thank the Taoiseach. Time is up.