Dr. Tony Holohan:

The Senator is right to say the formal engagement is through the ECDC and there is a scientific and governing group in which we have a seat. We participate and are recipients of the benefit of all the number-crunching analysis and evidence assessment that happens at a European level. We also have informal engagements that we try to maintain. On the island, we have close working relations with our counterparts in Northern Ireland for good and obvious reasons. We have some engagements across these islands from time to time with similar individuals in the UK jurisdictions and Ireland. It is less formal at a European level but we are trying and we have a process of engagement through our embassies and through some direct contact between our Department and departments in other jurisdictions to try to get more of the soft understanding, if one likes, of exactly where other countries are in relation to the kinds of advice that is provided by people like us within the systems so we can see the impact ultimately in other countries and understand the nature of advice that has been provided. We do all of those things to try to understand as much as we can. Perhaps Mr. Morris will speak to that, if I may use the Senator’s time.