Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have a question for Dr. Holohan. It is a point that I raised around 12 months ago. Obviously, Dr. Holohan is the Irish number one in terms of public health advice, but he has opposite numbers in each European country. All of them are receiving data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, ECDC. It has really concerned me right throughout Covid that the ECDC has 290 staff and an annual budget of €60 million. It covers a European-wide population of 500 million people. Looking at the United States, its Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, has an annual budget of $11.1 billion and 15,000 staff. The ECDC has been in existence for 17 years. It still has not been significantly beefed up during the Covid pandemic. Does Dr. Holohan have concerns about that? Has he articulated those concerns to his opposite numbers across Europe? Does he anticipate that we will see improvements in that regard? We are very reliant on Dr. Holohan, but he is very reliant on mothership Europe. It seems to me that the cogs in the wheel are working, but only working, and Covid was the ideal time to increase budget, staff and beef up this organisation. Is Dr. Holohan concerned, as we slowly come out of Covid, that this entity still lacks firepower?