Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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471. To ask the Minister for Health if his Department, along with the Health Service Executive, are putting in place systems to enable health professionals to work on a short-term basis in west Africa to assist in the efforts to deal with the Ebola outbreak; if similar arrangements will be put in place to those established by the NHS in Britain; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37158/14]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Ireland is very supportive of measures to fight the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. My colleague the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade has provided significant additional resources through Irish Aid to help the measures to control the outbreak. To date a number of Health Service Executive staff have spent periods of time working with Aid Agencies such as Médecins Sans Frontières and the World Health Organisation (WHO) in a number of West African countries during this outbreak. The exact arrangements to allow them to undertake this work is a matter for the individuals concerned and the Health Service Executive. I support any initiatives to facilitate these and others to work in the affected countries.