Ireland is fully supporting efforts by the international community to ensure fair and equitable access to vaccines for all. The Government quadrupled funding to the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2020, given its role as lead UN agency for health and co-host of the Access to Covid-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, which has the COVAX facility as a centrepiece.
The Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment leads on Intellectual Property Rights and World Trade Organisation (WTO) matters, including on the current discussion on the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement. They are giving consideration to Ireland’s potential participation in technology-pooling mechanisms such as the C-TAP initiative. My Department continues to liaise with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment on this and a number of related matters, on an ongoing basis.
In the meantime, my Department has announced an additional €5 million in Irish Aid funding for the response to Covid-19, to enable developing countries access vaccines. Most of this funding is going to the COVAX facility, a global UN-led mechanism for pooling procurement and fair distribution of vaccines. This is part of the €50 million allocated by my Department to global health in 2021.
I would like to thank the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence for their recent 'Report on the Distribution of Covid-19 Vaccines to Developing Countries', the recommendations of which are being considered across relevant Government Departments.
