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The government is not aware of any offer from the British government to deliver excess Covid-19 vaccines to the Republic, Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said.
It comes after a Sunday Times report outlining how the British government is considering offering 3.7 million vaccines to the state, in part to help ease lockdown restrictions in Northern Ireland.
“Of course, if there were, we would be very interested in talking to the British government about that,” Coveney said, but added that “politics is played here too.”
He said he heard comments from Northern Ireland Prime Minister Arlene Foster that surplus vaccines should be offered to Ireland “and I think that’s welcome language.” But he said that if you look at the figures, while 55 per cent of UK adults have received their first job, “less than 6 per cent of UK adults have received their second job. Therefore, there are still tens of millions of people to get their first job in the UK. ”
He added: “There may be a glut of vaccines at some point in the future, but I don’t think we’re realistic looking at it for many, many weeks yet.”
The proposed exports to the Republic would be Britain’s first time exporting blows to the European Union and the Sunday Times reported that a cabinet minister said it would be a “hit in the eye” for Brussels amid a dispute over supplies.
The newspaper reported that UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, Cabinet Minister Michael Gove and Northern Secretary Brandon Lewis have had “preliminary discussions” about the plan with a Cabinet source who says that it could start after Easter.
An Irish government source said there had been no rapprochement with Dublin prior to the newspaper’s report, and questioned the timing of it, as Britain faced a supply shortage while deliveries to the Republic are about to increase.
“There has been no contact,” said an Irish government source. “It will come at a time when they publicly announced that there is a vaccine shortage in April.”
“We do not expect to have problems with the supply of vaccines. . . The vaccine launch in Ireland is starting to take off like a rocket, the supply is clearly increasing. “
Supply pressure
Britain has relied heavily on vaccines exported from the EU for much of its implementation, after gaining an advantage due to its earlier emergency regulatory approval of jabs. But it faces a reduction in vaccine supplies as India tightens controls in response to rising internal infections and Brussels insists that pending orders from the EU must be fulfilled before exports.
However, if a vaccine were available, the Irish Government would certainly welcome it.
“Do not think we would reject it,” added the government source. “If they were available, we would take them, no one will refuse those vaccines.”
Speaking before the report, Ms Foster said that the British government should share vaccines with the Republic once its own vaccination program is completed.
He said this was due to “practical reasons” related to avoiding a situation in which the slower vaccination program in the south runs the risk of undermining the situation in the north and because the two jurisdictions are neighboring.
Ms. Foster told RTÉ’s The Week in Politics: “I think he’s a runner.”
He said he had raised the issue with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and would speak to him again.
Ms Foster said: “I think it is important that we continue the conversation and I will be listening very carefully to what our medical advisers say about the launch of the vaccine in Northern Ireland, where it is in the Republic of Ireland, and what that means for both jurisdictions “.
In response to the Sunday Times report, UK culture secretary Oliver Dowden said the UK does not “currently have a surplus” of coronavirus vaccines.
He told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday: “Clearly our first priority is to make sure we deliver vaccines in the UK.
“Clearly, we currently do not have a surplus of vaccines, if we got to the point where we had a surplus of vaccines, we would make decisions about the allocation of that surplus.”
Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald said, “I don’t think that qualifies as an offer,” when asked about the Republic receiving replacement vaccines from Britain.
“It’s a statement of the obvious on a level that if you have a surplus of vaccines, you shouldn’t stock them. It is a matter of enlightened self-interest ”.
Speaking on Newstalk’s On the Record with Gavan Reilly, he said: “I would hope that if the British government had an excess of vaccines, they would do the logical thing and, in their own interest, would seek to distribute that vaccine in the future. . “
He also said that while he had deep concerns about Britain’s behavior in relation to Brexit and the Northern Ireland protocol, “I don’t think a confrontational policy should be developed on the issue of vaccine distribution because there are no winners.” .
McDonald said some at the European level might consider speaking of Britain helping the state with additional vaccines “as a cynical blow to the eye, it is more productive to regard it as enlightened self-interest.”
Diplomatic tensions between the EU and Britain are real, he said, but “I don’t think getting into a war of words or any kind of trade war regarding vaccines or components will ultimately help anyone” – Additional report: PA
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