Chief Bioethics Officer at the Department of Health, Dr Siobhán O’Sullivan talks about the difficult decisions officials and individuals must grapple with in this pandemic and the values and principles which underpin them.

While science plays a vital role in informing decisions such as prioritisation for vaccination, these decisions are not made in a vacuum. They impact on all our lives and require assessment of legal, socio-economic factors, and judgements about what is right and wrong and what kind of society we want to live in. Siobhán explains how bioethics provides a framework that helps guide this decision making and Dick asks for her thoughts on complicated questions like should vaccination ever be mandatory, are vaccine passports fair, and are rich countries doing enough to ensure people in poorer countries have access to vaccines.

This series is organised by the Royal Irish Academy Life and Medical Sciences Committee in partnership with the Health Research Board.