Brian Leddin (Limerick City, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I offer my condolences to all who have been bereaved so far by the Covid-19 pandemic. I share my sympathies, as Members across the House have expressed theirs.

I would like to revisit my colleague, Deputy Ossian Smyth's, and I am sure the Minister's, favourite topic, namely, the Covid tracker app. I thank the Minister for the publication of last week's document. Although it is not a technical specification that an engineer would recognise or use, it provided helpful and confidence-building information. We were pleased to note that Ireland will, in line with best international practice, use the Apple-Google framework for decentralised exposure notification. We look forward to seeing the full data protection impact assessment in due course and engaging in the pre-launch discussion in the House which the Minister promised. We continue to call for a set of technical specifications, ideally including the source code, which the Minister indicated would be published.

I will focus my questions on how the app relates to Northern Ireland. By way of background, we have particular concerns about cross-Border traffic and potential infection or exposure. Although it is too early to identify causes, the abnormally high excess mortality rates in counties Cavan and Monaghan underline the severity of the problem. As the Minister's report notes, international inter-operability of contact-tracing apps is desirable but complex and is likely to take many months to achieve. This is too long for us, given our unique border situation. The UK Government is, almost uniquely in the world, continuing with its plan to build a centralised contact-tracing app, which will not be inter-operable with any other contact-tracing app, including ours. It is at the discretion of an app developer, which in the case of the Covid-19 tracker app is the HSE, to decide in which app stores its app will appear. For example, earlier today I successfully downloaded the Indian contact-tracing app, which is known as Aarogya Setu.

Will the Minister confirm we will offer the Covid-19 tracker app in the UK app store in order that Northern Irish residents can download and use it? As part of the publicity campaign planned for the launch of the app, will he ensure that Northern Irish residents who may travel to the Republic, or who may interact with people who travel North from the Republic, are aware they can download and use the Covid-19 tracker app? Whether or not the app is in cross-Border use, are arrangements and protocols in place between the Irish and Northern Irish contact-tracing teams to facilitate tracking of cross-Border infection, exposure and risk?

My second question relates to therapeutics and vaccines. My colleague, Deputy Ossian Smyth, asked last week about how we were planning to acquire stocks of remdesivir, the antiviral drug that has shown promising early results in treating patients acutely ill with Covid-19. On the broader topic of access to therapies and vaccines, and assuming we do not want to get into a PPE-style procurement scramble for drugs, I ask the Minister the following question, for which I am happy to receive answers subsequently in writing. Do we have, or are we working on, plans to access locally manufactured supplies of therapeutic drugs or vaccines as they become available and are the drug companies here co-operating with the Minister in this regard? Should we consider keeping the Covid-19 testing centres active beyond the six months envisaged and until a vaccine is available, both so that we can keep testing at a high rate and so that we could use Covid-19 testing centres as vaccination clinics?

I note that the US President has announced he is willing to wind down the American coronavirus task force around the end of May. I do not for a moment suggest there is much we can learn from the American experience, but just as we have laid out a roadmap and criteria for reopening our economy and society, does the Minister have a view of how and when we can move from a crisis footing to a more normal operational phase as it relates to health service governance and operations? Specifically, for how long does he envisage that a NPHET-like structure will be required and how and when could we think about moving to a more long-term arrangement from our current crisis footing? I think we have all been struggling with the current arrangements as they relate to transparency and Dáil oversight, as I am sure the Minister will agree.

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