Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his contributions. I am always in awe of the Green Party knowledge of all things to do with the app. Every week it is very impressive. I hope that it augurs well if the party comes into government in respect of the progressing of these matters.

This app will be a big help. To make a point the Chief Medical Officer would make if he were here, this app will be complementary to what he would describe as the shoe leather, which is the ongoing work in contact tracing. Some countries talk about using these apps almost to replace the more traditional route of carrying out contact tracing but that is not our intention.

I will respond to the Deputy in writing on some of the questions about Northern Ireland. We want an all-island approach and we are working hard. I have had a number of engagements with the Northern Ireland Minister of Health, Robin Swann, and the Tánaiste and I have had a number of engagements with the First Minister, Deputy First Minister, Secretary of State and Minister of Health. The two chief medical officers are engaging as well and the Deputy's proposals in this regard are eminently sensible. I intend that the app will be available to residents in Northern Ireland through the UK store. We will revert to the Deputy on some of the technical ways of making that happen. We are having some conversations with colleagues in the North regarding an all-island approach, of which this is one element.

I will get the Deputy an updated note on the therapeutics but, as of now, remdesivir has not been licensed or approved anywhere globally and has not yet been demonstrated to be safe or effective for treatment of Covid-19. In this country, access to remdesivir is facilitated through one of three mechanisms. The first is compassionate access for pregnant women and their children. The second is an expanded access programme assigned to two sites only, which were selected on the basis of a review exercise that was undertaken. The company imposed criteria in this regard, including that the patient needed to be ventilated and the clinical site could not be able to access the drug through a clinical trial. The third is the WHO solidarity study, in which I am eager that Ireland will participate. This trial is supported by my Department and is progressing in anticipation of being able to recruit patients in the coming weeks. Work is being undertaken by a group, with representatives from my Department, the Health Research Board Clinical Research Coordination Ireland, and our regulator, the Health Products Regulatory Authority, HPRA. The study will be sponsored by University College Cork, UCC, and the national primary investigator will be Professor Joe Eustace. The phase 1 sites will be University Hospital Limerick; Cork University Hospital; University Hospital Galway; Beaumont Hospital; Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, Drogheda; the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital; St. James's Hospital; Tallaght University Hospital; and St. Vincent's University Hospital. It is a largely randomised study, in which remdesivir will be one arm. I will keep the House informed on this clinical study.

On NPHET, I do not have a definitive view on when it will no longer be required. I envisage it will be required for quite a period. My gut feeling is that it will be required at least for the duration of Ireland's published roadmap because we will require its view at every phase as to whether it is safe to move on to the next phase. We will also require massive public health surveillance during that time. I am not suggesting Deputy Leddin was necessarily saying this but I do not buy into some of the conspiracy theories I hear about NPHET. It is an excellent group of experts, with about 20 doctors on the committee. It brings together all of the relevant people from the HPRA, which is our medicines' regulator, HIQA, the Department of Health and the HSE. It also includes a few people such as the president of the Irish College of General Practitioners, ICGP. Its minutes are published, as they should be. Letters to me and to the chief executive of the HSE are also published, as they should be. We have made clear in our roadmap the governance structure with respect to how decision processes are made, which is a welcome development. Following the publication of the roadmap, I will go to Cabinet every three weeks with a report with a recommendation on whether we can move on to the next phase. There is a clear understanding of exactly how the Cabinet will make those decisions as well. I am conscious that I come to this House two hours per week and will, I presume, participate in the Covid-19 committee as well, along with officials, to try to continue to provide that information. NPHET is not unique to this crisis. It has been used in many other crises, including the CPE crisis. I value, as do the Irish people, the decision to take a public health approach, rather than what has happened in some other jurisdictions where they have played politics with the global pandemic.

See this speech in context