Mr. Dáire Hughes:

I thank the panel for coming in, presenting to us and fielding our questions. I would like to start by commending and echoing the comments of my party colleague Deputy Seán Crowe on Duchenne muscular dystrophy. I welcome the early access programme for that, which has been announced by the Belfast Trust. I specifically commend the families of the children suffering from DMD who have campaigned strenuously for that, including families in my constituency. I wish every applicant to the early access programme well.

With regard to public health challenges, it is broadly accepted that public health challenges are universal across this island, although some are more acute depending on if you are in the North or the South and urban or rural, your peripheral status to Dublin or Belfast and, fundamentally, your socioeconomic circumstances. I would contest that partition has had an undeniable impact on both public health in general and healthcare provision throughout the island. Life expectancy in the North is lower. There is a general lower quality of life, incidences of chronic illnesses are higher and mental health issues are ongoing. That is owing to both the legacy of our conflict and decades of British Government austerity and underinvestment in both public health and healthcare initiatives.

The island's population is completely interdependent and intertwined. We cross the border to work, to study, for recreation, for socialising and for family connections. It is in everybody's interest that public health be advanced across the island as a whole. That necessitates the bridging of the gap and developing complementary policies on issues like tobacco, vapes, alcohol, air quality, gambling and all of those things, and there are still considerable gaps in relation to that. To that end, the all-Ireland data set is a fundamental requirement to inform joined-up public policy.

Tthe witnesses have acknowledged that we are close in terms of trajectory in public health on a North-South basis and that we are going in the right direction, albeit with the divergences I have listed. What are the principal obstacles to the formation of an all-Ireland data set? Where is the institute hitting a brick wall in taking this forward? Is there anything specifically that this committee could recommend or advance to take it forward? It seems like a logical and practical evolution of both the shared island unit and the North-South Ministerial Council to take this forward and deliver it, given that I can guarantee that neither health Minister, North or South, would recoil from the advantages of having such a concrete data set representing all citizens on the island.