I want to add my voice to support a TRIPS waiver. As I have spoken on the record in this regard on the Order of Business in the convention centre in the past, I will not use my time on it today. I have not spoken on Order of Business since the Taoiseach was with us. I thought the elephant in the room was the fact that the Taoiseach did not give a response on the issue of Seanad reform. I intend to write to him but I ask that the Leader would also write to him on behalf of the House asking for a response to the Senators who raised Seanad reform on the record that day. There have been 13 separate reports on Seanad reform. I was part of the Seanad reform implementation group of the then Taoiseach, Deputy Leo Varadkar, in the previous Seanad. We worked hard to produce a report and a Bill, which is on the table in this House. I ask the Leader whether she will support that Bill.

I was not here last week when the issue of secretarial assistants' pay was raised. I wish to put my support for that on record. I have spoken on the issue in the past. The starting pay, as we all know, is €11.75 per hour but the living wage is €12.90 per hour. It takes 18 years to climb the scale. We know secretarial assistants do much the same job as parliamentary assistants, who are on a starting salary of €41,000. Senator Kyne dealt with this on the Order of Business last week. I would welcome the Leader's response to it. We have a collective responsibility to deliver for secretarial assistants. In regard to a family-friendly parliament, recommendation 12 of the Ceann Comhairle's forum was that it "recommends a review of the pay scales and role profiles for Secretarial Assistants to increase the starting salary, in light of the comparisons to be drawn with the salaries and role profile of Parliamentary Assistants". One focus of that was the fact that many secretarial assistants, SAs, go on to serve as public representatives as well.

I thank Senator Warfield for raising those three issues. I am happy to send a letter to the Taoiseach. I thought he did actually respond that evening but maybe that was wishful thinking on my part. I will send a letter and will send a copy of it to Senator Warfield. It was probably on Wednesday last week that the pay and conditions of SAs was discussed-----

It was Thursday.

I was not here for the Order of Business. What I think is bizarre, given the restrictions that Senators must operate under, is I am not sure why we have a secretarial assistant.

We all know that the secretarial assistants to our Dáil colleagues do all of the constituency work. Most of us do not have constituencies. It is the job of Senators to scrutinise and be that second pair of eyes to enhance and embellish legislation that is brought forward, whether Private Members' Bills or Government Bills. Senator Warfield is correct that what our secretarial assistants do is 100% parliamentary business work. Therefore, in trying to get the salary scales for them increased, which is probably very true for our Dáil colleagues too, we are fighting the wrong argument. We should be seeking to have secretarial assistants to Senators redefined as personal assistants. We need to work together and collectively with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the commission to make sure that campaign does not die, or that is not dampened down in the way it has been sought to be dampened down in the past couple of months.

I support the call by Senators Gavan, Malcolm Byrne and Rebecca Moynihan for a TRIPS waiver. Senator Gavan made the very good suggestion that he should draft a motion with regard to TRIPS waivers to be put before this House for debate to see if we can collectively arrive at a position that would call not just on the Government but on the European Commission to change their positions. As stated very clearly by Dr. Michael Ryan, and by Dr. Navarro on weekend radio, unless the world is safe, nobody is safe. The hysteria, which has been media driven in terms of the overdrive in the media on Thursday and Friday with regard to the variant, shows that we need to act now to have citizens worldwide inoculated. Otherwise, we will still be talking about the next level of variants this time next year.

Senator Buttimer asked for a debate on foreign policy, particularly with regard to the EU and the treatment of migrants. I will arrange that debate as quickly as I can because I think some of the indications, particularly on the issues between Belarus and Poland and France and the United Kingdom, and the evidence uncovered in the past couple of weeks leave an awful lot to be desired with regard to the humanity and the way we would treat people, particularly other Europeans.

Senator Malcolm Byrne spoke about the accessibility to beaches and not just in County Wexford, which I love. He spoke about a young man named Matthew McGrath. The Senator is dead right; the campaign should be a national one. I am happy to write to the Minister to ask if he will support Matthew McGrath and to see if we can get that campaign going up and down the country.

Senator Conway spoke about the vaccination programme and the success we have enjoyed to date. He is correct to highlight the issue of staff being let go, the most prominent person being Professor Brian MacCraith, when we all knew and were expecting a bonus, booster or third vaccine. The fact that we are now looking for new swabbers and people to administer the vaccinations seems a little bizarre. I thank the Senator for raising the issue this morning. I will bring his suggestion with regard to rural pharmacies to the attention of the Minister for Health.