We are in the middle of a global health crisis. We are living in extraordinary times which call for extraordinary measures. I note that last night President Biden released a statement announcing his Administration's support for the waiving of intellectual property rights for Covid-19 vaccines. It is quite obvious that not vaccinating the globe in its entirety as expeditiously as possible increases the likelihood of the development of further variants that are resistant to existing vaccines, ultimately prolonging the pandemic. I am sorry to repeat what others have raised but in light of last night's announcement, this issue needs to be discussed at greater length. I note the Tánaiste's comments on the inability of certain countries in the global south to manufacture vaccines but there are large nations in that region that would have the capacity to do so. This is an issue that the Government must examine again.

As I mentioned earlier, the announcement from the US yesterday is very significant and has caused the EU and other developed countries to reassess their position on this matter. This pandemic is raging across the world. Records are being broken every day in terms of the number of new cases. If we are going to get the virus under control, we need to get it under control everywhere. That means vaccinating everyone in the world and doing to Covid-19 what we did to polio and small pox. If we do not do that, the virus could be re-imported into the West and variants will develop that could be resistant to vaccines. However, as I mentioned earlier, just giving somebody the recipe is not enough. If they do not have a kitchen, kitchen skills or the ingredients, it will not make a practical difference in terms of the production of vaccines. That is why it makes sense to have a comprehensive agreement, ideally with the companies and the manufacturers of the materials on board because they are the ones with the know-how. That is the approach that is going to be taken in the WTO.