Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

I thank all members of the Seanad who have spoken for their kind comments, particularly about the chief medical officer. I will certainly ensure their comments are relayed to him. He is a dynamic, visionary chief medical officer. He is new to his post. In fact, he took over the day before the pork had to be withdrawn, so he has had something of a baptism of fire. In thanking him, I also acknowledge Professor Hall from St Vincent's Hospital and UCD, who is chairman of the expert group, and Dr. Darina Flanagan and Dr. Kelleher from the Health Service Executive, HSE. They have been meeting each day, including over the weekend, to ensure they are on top of what is required. They have been connected to the WHO and at European Union level.

I was asked a number of questions. I share Senator Feeney's view that we must be vigilant and not complacent. When I attended the meeting last Thursday, I was reassured to know we are as prepared as anybody else, but it is clear that in the event of a pandemic, all health systems would be challenged.

On schools, swine flu was to be considered today by the Department of Education and Science at its management meeting, but the guidelines suggest that, in the event of an outbreak in a crèche, the crèche would be closed, and if there was an outbreak in a primary school, the class would be kept at home. In the event of an outbreak in a secondary school, the advice of the public health authorities would be sought. On the one hand, we have to be precautionary in the manner in which we deal with schools, but on the other hand, if we sent every child home from school, many of our health care workers would face a challenge in finding someone to look after their children, so we have to take expert advice on the issues. We must do the right thing, of course, but we must do it in proportion. The Department of Education and Science is on the interdepartmental group which met twice in the past week.

Reference was made to the number of people who die from influenza. At the EU meeting last week, the WHO made the point that across the European Union, including the European Economic Area and the EFTA countries, between 40,000 and 220,000 people a year die either from flu as a sole cause or from influenza and other conditions. It is important to put the matter in context.

The Labour Court recently adjudicated on out-of-hours cover for public health doctors. I understand it made a recommendation yesterday that will go to ballot with a positive recommendation from the IMO. That issue was raised last week. I very much welcome that and hope the recommendation will be supported.

The chief medical officer will be happy to ensure we continue to have appropriate briefings, where necessary, of key spokespeople from the political parties.

On hospitals, as Senator Twomey said, we want to treat people at home. For many reasons, we want to minimise the number of people who require hospital admissions, but in the event of a pandemic the protocols suggest that all non-urgent, non-emergency hospital procedures would be cancelled, not just so that we had the appropriate beds for patients who needed treatment but to minimise the chance of hospitals' being the source of cross-infection and the flu being passed from person to person. I will ensure my Department circulates a copy of the plan published in 2007. It is easy to read and understand and it contains useful information for Members of the Oireachtas.

I remember two years ago when the issue arose of whether we needed to purchase anti-virals at a cost of €30 million, which would be stored until the event of their use being necessary, I commented to my officials that I was in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment when we were coming towards Y2K. Much money was spent to ensure computers did not all break down and aeroplanes did not fall out of the sky. Afterwards we reflected on what it had cost. The same issues crossed my mind but the overriding concern must be that one must be prepared even in the event of it not being necessary. The same applies now to the vaccine.

To be in the queue to get the vaccine four to six months after the pandemic occurs - most people have said it would take at least six months to get the vaccine - we must pay money upfront, which will have to happen shortly. In the current environment where every €1 million is important, one might ask whether we have to do this now. The answer is "Yes" because in the event of it being necessary, it will be too late to join the queue. We have made a decision to procure the vaccine and pay a sum of money in advance to its producers in order to be in that queue. We will be with 15 to 17 other EU countries in that regard.

The issue of travel was discussed at the Ministers' meeting last week. The French Minister took the view that all direct flights between Mexico and Europe should be cancelled. That view was not widely shared because one can come from Mexico through other countries, including the United States of America and Venezuela. Ireland does not have direct flights with Mexico and yet we have had a case here of someone who had holidayed in Mexico. However, we took the view we should advise people not to travel to Mexico unless absolutely necessary. That remains the advice. I know of two people who have taken that advice and changed their holiday plans. Many people will take that advice but others may not.

I will be happy to come to the House at any stage to speak about the influenza if it becomes a pandemic or if the situation changes.