Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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200. To ask the Minister for Health his plans to disband NPHET. [10145/22]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) is an established mechanism for coordinating the health sector response to significant public health emergencies. It facilitates the sharing of information between the Department of Health and its agencies. It is a long-standing structure which has been utilised over many years to provide a forum to steer strategic approaches to public health emergencies in Ireland and mobilise the necessary health service responses. National Public Health Emergency Teams have been established in recent years in response to public health threats, including H1N1 (swine flu) and CPE (Carbapenemase Producing Enterobacterales), for example. This public health approach is in line with the advice of the World Health Organization (WHO).

Since its first meeting in January 2020, the NPHET for COVID-19 has overseen and provided direction, guidance, support and expert advice across the health service and the wider public service for the overall national response to COVID-19, including national and regional and other outbreak control arrangements. In particular, the NPHET has played a critical role in closely and continuously monitoring the evolving impact of COVID-19 on Ireland’s population, as well as the health service’s capacity, performance, and ability to respond.

Following its meeting on 20th January 2022, the NPHET advised that the prevailing profile of COVID-19 in Ireland and the available evidence and experience of Omicron internationally allowed for a fundamental change in the management of COVID-19. It advised that this should entail a transition, in broad terms, from a focus on regulation and population wide restrictions to a focus on public health advice, personal judgement and personal protective behaviours.

On 17th February, the NPHET recommended the removal of remaining public health measures from 28th February, as planned, on the basis that there is no longer a continuing public health rationale for retaining them.

In providing its advice, the NPHET has emphasised we cannot fully rule out the reintroduction of measures in the future and we must continue to ensure our response is agile and flexible, with an ability to respond rapidly and appropriately to any emerging threat. There will be an ongoing requirement to be able to scale up appropriate responses quickly should they be required.

Notwithstanding the need for continued vigilance, the NPHET has advised that we are now entering a transition phase of the pandemic response. This transition will entail a shift from the emergency type processes and measures of the last two years while also necessitating the maintenance of high levels of readiness for COVID-19 outbreaks and the emergence of new variants of concern, with significant strengthening of existing disease surveillance systems.

As we move out of the emergency phase of the pandemic and given the significant mainstreaming of the COVID-19 response, the continuing impact of the vaccination programme, and the programme of work already completed by the NPHET, it is now deemed timely to conclude the work of the NPHET.

The Office of the Chief Medical Officer will continue to closely monitor the epidemiological profile of the disease and the Minister for Health has been provided with a specific proposal on the appropriate structure and processes for this.