Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)
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The World Health Organisation is a UN body, mandated to advocate for universal healthcare, monitor public health risks, and coordinate responses to health emergencies. Each year Ireland makes an assessed contribution to the running costs of the body, through the Department of Health: in 2019 this amounted to €1.45m, and in 2020 the assessed contribution was €1.68 million. This is topped up with a voluntary contribution of €1 million from Ireland’s budget for international cooperation, Irish Aid, managed by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

COVID-19 is a global crisis, requiring a collective, coordinated, global response. The WHO is at the centre of that global response, working to control the spread of COVID-19 and mitigate its impact.

Ireland was the first country to contribute to the WHO COVID-19 appeal: this appeal has since been rolled into the UN Global Humanitarian Response Plan, which aims at a coherent response across the UN system to COVID-19. To date, Ireland has contributed €6.8 million to the WHO appeal. Ireland’s funding contributes to the evidence, guidance and advice produced by the WHO on COVID-19 which directly informs Ireland’s domestic public health response to the pandemic, along with that of the Europe Centre for Disease Control and the European Union. Ireland also benefits from WHO’s support to other countries as, if left uncontrolled in other regions, the virus will return to Europe. As Dr. Mike Ryan, Executive Director of the World Health Organization's Health Emergencies Programme, has said, “nobody is safe until everybody is safe.”