Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. For reasons we all understand, we take North-South co-operation seriously, no more so than on this issue. The closer we can have to an all-island approach to this, the better. I will have to see Mr. Swann's comments for myself. However, there is a good and constructive ongoing relationship.

Mr. Swann and I recently held a health sectorial meeting for the North-South Ministerial Council, something that had not been in place for many years. We are co-operating on data sharing and Covid. It would not be normal for me to directly contact the Minister, Mr. Swann, about the identification of variants, any more than he would contact me about specific variants being identified in Northern Ireland. There is close ongoing co-operation between the chief medical officers. The more co-operation we can have on an ongoing basis North and South, the better.

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