David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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859. To ask the Minister for Health if he has engaged with his counterpart in Northern Ireland on developing all-island contingency planning to prepare for future island-wide epidemics; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21170/21]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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There has been, and continues to be, significant engagement and cooperation between the Ministers for Health, the Chief Medical Officers, and the Departments of Health in Ireland and Northern Ireland throughout this pandemic.

Both administrations are seeking to adopt similar approaches, where it is appropriate to do so and on the advice of respective Chief Medical Officers. This approach is underpinned a Memorandum of Understanding agreed by the Chief Medical Officers of the Department of Health and the Department of Health in Northern Ireland in April 2020 to strengthen North South co-operation on the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic.  In November, this overarching agreement was supplemented with a further Memorandum of Understanding in relation to a framework for mutual support for the provision of critical care.

Meetings of the North South Ministerial Council are also an important pillar in our regular engagements with Northern Ireland counterparts on COVID-19. Recently, I met with Minister Swann at the North South Ministerial Council Health and Food Safety Sectoral. At this meeting the ongoing collaboration and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic were discussed and the potential for further collaboration on public health in both jurisdictions was welcomed.

I am committed to continue this close and productive cooperation with Northern Ireland to foster commonality in approaches, where possible.

David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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860. To ask the Minister for Health the role played by public health departments; the enhanced role he envisages they will play with the additional consultant public health medicine posts; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21171/21]

David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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861. To ask the Minister for Health the way in which public health departments are structured; if this will change with the additional consultant posts; if so, the way they will change; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21172/21]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 860 and 861 together.

There are eight Departments of Public Health covering the Republic of Ireland, each providing Public Health expertise and services locally and nationally. Public Health Doctors provide health protection services, advocate and contribute to health improvement and participate in health service development. Each Department is led by a Director of Public Health who is also a regional Medical Officer of Health and has a mandated responsibility and authority to investigate and control notifiable infectious diseases and outbreaks.

Our Public Health Doctors have been to the forefront of our response to the pandemic and the role of the public health doctor has transitioned very rapidly from one of leading small, confined teams, to now leading and directing the activities of a very broad range of organisations and large multidisciplinary teams. They have made an enormous contribution to the protection of everybody living in Ireland.

The past year has highlighted the critical national importance of an appropriately resourced public health workforce, and through the Covid-19 Path Ahead Plan, this Government has committed to investment in, and resourcing of public health and the delivery of a strengthened and reformed consultant-delivered public health model.

The new model will radically change the governance and operating structure within Public Health, introducing a more fit-for-purpose National and Regional management structure across each of the pillars of Public Health.

This will be a Consultant-led model which will enable the recruitment and retention of Public Health Doctors with the capability, autonomy, authority and accountability to lead multidisciplinary teams to deliver an agile, dynamic, intelligence-led public health service to protect the population from health threats, promote health, improve health services and tackle health inequalities.

The introduction of the Consultant role will also bring the status of this specialty in line with other countries, as Ireland has, for many years, been an outlier in not recognising the specialty at consultant status.