Dr. Tony Holohan:

The NPHET first met in relation to this pandemic - we passed the two-year mark last week - on 25 or 26 January 2020, when most people had not heard of this particular virus or maybe some people might have seen some bits in the newspapers of reports from China. We were worried at that point about the potential. We had a certain amount of engagement over the course of a number of weeks to try to determine what was happening, largely among the public health and virology community such as Dr. Cillian De Gascun, Dr. Glynn and I, and a number of senior colleagues in the HSE, and then, when we got to assess that this was something that was not going to go away and we were concerned about it, the formal decision to establish the NPHET was made.

The membership of NPHET has been added to somewhat over time. In broad terms, there are four people from the infectious disease community - one of the individuals the Deputy mentioned comes from that specialty - already. These are consultants in that individual specialty. We have people from microbiology, virology and elsewhere. When the need has arisen in the past, or has been identified, either by us or the Minister, or, indeed, by Government, to add an expertise to that we believe we need, then we have done that. That is the process that has pertained in the course of the two years. It has grown, but proportionately, in response to what has been an unprecedented public health emergency.