Mr. Muiris O'Connor:

There is quite a lot there. I will take the Vice Chairman's and Deputy Murphy O'Mahony's questions. I will ask Mr. Smyth to address the cross-border health care directive and the issues of training and qualifications.

In terms of the number of full-time staff at the Department of Health on the issue of Brexit, we have a comprehensive, whole-of-Department approach. The international unit that Mr. Smyth heads up plays a co-ordinating role. There are seven people in the international unit, of whom four are working full-time on Brexit. The other three are drawn in regularly in very comprehensive ways. Our model is to decentralise.

The committee's report pressed us to go from higher-level international diplomacy issues to the nitty gritty detail of the current co-operation and service provisions, which required us to work with the subject experts at different levels. The head of the medicines unit is working very proactively with the Health Products Regulatory Authority, HPRA, on Brexit. I would say that comes close to full time for a number of people in that division. The HPRA would have a number of people working actively on Brexit to go through and look at the medicines.

We have a sub-committee of our management board, chaired by deputy secretary Colm O'Reardon. There are three of us from the management team directly on that as well as key principal officers from around the Department. We also have the head of primary care from the HSE on that sub-committee of the management board, to create a link with the HSE.

In turn, the HSE has its own steering committee on Brexit. I do not know the full membership. I took part in a meeting of the group before Christmas. There are the heads of primary care, emergency services, and procurement. We are very satisfied that we have the right people at the right level on that. The HSE has its Brexit work organised into a number of work streams, including the continuation of the current patient and client health services; cross-border and frontier arrangements, including co-operation and working together, COWT, crucially; emergency health services including ambulance, transport costs and the coast guard; and public health matters. The continuity of supply of goods and services is being looked after and managed by the head of procurement. Procurement arrangements themselves are a key issue for the next phase of negotiations and the HSE has a strand on that. Workforce issues and the recognition of qualifications is another strand. These are not just dry structures.

Our strategic priorities around Brexit are reflected in the service plan. What are we doing in a concrete sense? A big part of the contingency planning is brokering partnerships between the health services North and South to share ideas. There is serious concern on both sides. It is a collective engagement on the challenges. We are working on developing practical solutions to common health challenges and new ways to improve health and social care services for the well-being of people on the island.

As already stated, there is a commitment from the UK - it came earlier than December - to continue support for the current rounds of INTERREG and PEACE funding. We want to ensure a very successful implementation of the projects to which I refer under the INTERREG programme and with our partners in Northern Ireland. The undertaking of those projects, which involve co-operation on mental health, e-health and other issues, are being used by us and others to bottom-out what are the implications for Brexit in the context of the continuity of those programmes. Importantly, in the December agreement, the UK and the EU committed to looking favourably at future rounds of that, and that would be critical for services on a cross-Border basis.

We want to support key structures, including Departments, the North-South Ministerial Council, the special EU programmes body, and continue to conduct with the full support of the HSE detailed analysis on the implications of Brexit. It sounds tired, like we are continuing contingency planning, but this is a moving target and we need that sort of contingency planning. Even the committee's report pushed us to bottom-out the more extreme scenarios.