Dr. Tony Holohan:

As I mentioned, we have meetings scheduled for 7 February and we will have to get on with that. In response to an earlier question, I said consideration is to be given by the Department and the Minister to whether there will be a follow-on from NPHET. However we manage to establish ourselves in responding to this disease, there will always be a need for multidisciplinary public health advice to inform any decisions the Government has to take. The decisions every government has to take in response to Covid are multifaceted but independent public health advice is a key component.

We have been lucky in this country that we have been able to maintain the public health advice. In other countries, the extent to which clear public health advice has informed decisions that have been made has not been as evident or as strong. I expect there will be a desire here to maintain that, and whatever mechanism is in place will still have to have all the relevant disciplines and will still involve the Chief Medical Officer. That is the future of the advice in that context. The details of it will be a matter for the Minister.