“EU Commission will have no excuse and no cover if they continue to block urgent global scale-up in vaccine production”
A temporary suspension of Intellectual property rights to allow increased global production of vaccines has been proposed by over 60 countries at the WTO but had until now been blocked by a small group of wealthier countries including the US and EU.
Tonight the U.S Trade Representative Katherine Tai acknowledged that “the extraordinary of the COVID-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures” and confirmed the United States would be supporting a TRIPS waiver.
Senator Higgins, who has been a passionate advocate for the TRIPS waiver over recent months has said that “Europe must now drop it’s opposition to the waiver.
“The European Commission will have no excuse and no cover if they continue to block the urgent global scale up in vaccine manufacture and access. For Europe sustain opposition to a TRIPS waiver in the face of a mounting global death toll and the wave if new variants would be morally unconscionable and incredibly foolish – the only way to truly tackle this global pandemic is through collective action. When a huge portion of the world’s population remain vulnerable to COVID-19, those are ideal grounds for the virus to develop new variants and it is a matter of time before those variants become vaccine resistant,”
“This is an issue of justice and of safety. The European Commission must show that they are serious about ending this pandemic and protecting global public health by supporting the TRIPS waiver.”
Yesterday, Senator Higgins participated in a high-level dialogue between parliamentarians from across the world, including the United States and EU, South Africa and India who are working together to support a TRIPS waiver.
Senator Higgins was also one of 400 European parliamentarians to sign an open letter urging governments to support a TRIPS waiver,
“When I raised this issue in the Seanad with Minister of State for Trade Promotion Robert Troy, I emphasised the massive public investment which had supported vaccine development, those vaccines must be treated as a public good”
Concluding Senator Higgins noted “This is a defining moral and political moment, The Irish Government need to stop wavering on this and prove that we value global public health ahead of profit by clearly and publicly calling on the EU Commission to do the right thing and support a TRIPS waiver.”
“Open adoption could offer more honest and compassionate recognition of family situations”
Senator Alice-Mary Higgins has welcomed the launch of a ground-breaking public consultation on the potential introduction of open adoption in Ireland. This consultation is a direct result of an amendment which Senator Higgins successfully made to the Adoption (Amendment) Act 2016.
Senator Higgins welcomes the launch of the Report on Gender Budgeting from the Committee on Budgetary Oversight. The report contains several important recommendations including that the annual budget statement should be accompanied by an equality budget statement - something which Senator Higgins has long called for.