Professor Gerard Bury:

I thank the Chairman. His own comments fill in the blanks and many of the issues. It seems the Department of Health and the Department of Foreign Affairs are lead agencies in creating such a framework. Clearly at operational levels, the HSE and other parts of the health sector in this country will contribute and will have an important role to play, but there are some principles are important from my experience. One is keeping it tight. Large, bulky administrative organisations that are cumbersome are not going to attract the sort of people or functions we want, nor will they deliver. The second is that there has to be focus and that will differ from one medical emergency to another. It is important to have a range of skills, equipment and preparation.

The pre-hospital, early hospital and continuing care domains seem to me, as a family doctor in my own professional background, to be the main components of care that need to be prepared and delivered. Whether it is a training issue or whether it is a provision of care issue, there are large numbers of people in this country with expertise they are willing to contribute. A lean organisation with clear focus that gives them an opportunity to provide added value is going to attract many of the colleagues I know, under the banner of an Irish national project. For the reasons Professor Fitzpatrick mentioned, the country stands to gain from such an exercise as well.

Volunteerism is extraordinary as a powerful driver for good. We have now raised €1 million, of which we have spent about €700,000. All of that money has been spent on equipment and on travel, not on administration or on any other function. It is an enormous tribute to the people who have volunteered their time, their expertise and their own funds, to a large extent, to get them to a point where they can deliver on their commitments.

The Department of Health and the Department of Foreign Affairs seem to be agencies that might, at an early stage, consider the establishment of such a framework and perhaps consult with some of the other countries at EU level, which have similar frameworks, and examine how best the sort of characteristics I have talked about might fit.

In respect of the hospital and other health services in Ukraine, it goes without saying they are under extraordinary pressure. One of our colleagues who has accompanied virtually every mission that we have delivered in Ukraine, Dr. Lyudmyla Zakharchenko, a consultant neonatologist in the Rotunda hospital, comes from Ukraine and her expertise in liaising with her peers in Ukraine has clearly demonstrated to us that this is an area of care that has been devastated by the war. The care of mothers and neonates, children in their formative weeks and days, has been undermined at many levels and Dr. Zakharchenko's ability to work with her colleagues in some areas that have been battered by artillery and to talk with them about better and more modern techniques to offer care to those neonates has been inspiring. Dr. Zakharchenko has not needed to go and put hands on babies who have just been born, but her expertise and her ability to talk to colleagues and countrymen about how best and how better, perhaps, to offer care to those mothers and babies has made a difference.