Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There is certainly a clear understanding at a European health minister level that significant investment is required in the systems in place to deal with pandemics, including the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, ECDC, the European Medicines Agency, EMA, and other groups. We know that in Ireland, regardless of what happens at a European institution level, significant investment is required. The public health system here was not fit for purpose in terms of dealing with a global pandemic. We should have, and now will have, a consultant-led public health system. We need a much expanded public health system, which we are now doubling, as the Deputy is aware. We also need much better IT systems. We need to move on some of the other things that not only are related to public health and the pandemic but also run through the Sláintecare system, such as unique patient identifiers. We are laggards on e-health and that has to change. Significant investment and work are going into the system to that end.

When it comes to the ECDC, I can tell the Deputy that the public health teams certainly rate its advice very highly. The National Public Health Emergency Team, NPHET, regularly refers to and interacts with the ECDC on international comparative analysis around public health and Covid-19. The core question the Deputy asked was whether the European institutions need to be further enhanced and I certainly would be supportive of that.