Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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425. To ask the Minister for Health further to Parliamentary Question No. 1568 of 14 June 2022, if he will meet with a group (details supplied) to discuss an inquiry given that at the last meeting with the group it was confirmed to have been with Minister Butler on 12 July 2021 in which the group was informed regarding an inquiry that it is up to him and the Taoiseach; and if not, the reason for not doing so; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33391/22]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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As was confirmed with the Deputy in a recent response, my colleague the Minister for Mental Health and Older People met with the Care Champions group on the 12th July 2021 and heard the concerns as set out at the meeting and in further correspondence received.

The Taoiseach has indicated that a comprehensive evaluation of how the country managed COVID-19 will provide an opportunity to learn lessons from our experiences in dealing with a pandemic over the past 2 years, and consideration is being given as to what the best model for this evaluation will be. This will help ensure that we are in a better, stronger position if another pandemic or another similar type emergency arrives.

There has been a clear national commitment to continue to learn from the pandemic and where necessary to ensure that the public health-led approach evolves, as evidence and learning materialises. As the Deputy will be aware, I established a Public Health Reform Expert Advisory Group in January 2022. The Expert Group will initially focus on identifying learnings from the public health components of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Ireland with a view towards strengthening health protection generally and future public health pandemic preparedness specifically. It is important that we have a strong and robust embedded public health system into the future.

Both myself and Minister Butler remain fully committed to the continued improvement of older persons services, including long term residential care. To this end, there has been significant learnings from the experience and impact of COVID-19 on nursing homes, and more generally, and these learnings are informing a wide-ranging programme of reform which was recommended in the COVID-19 Nursing Homes Expert Panel report. This report outlines the key protective measures that we must ensure are in place across our nursing homes, based on learning from our own and the international experience of COVID-19.

Significant progress has already been made in implementing the recommendations of the Expert Panel, particularly those recommendations requiring a priority focus in the response to COVID-19, and work to progress medium and longer term reform recommendations is ongoing across all of the health agencies and stakeholders. Four Expert Panel Progress Reports have been published to date, the latest published on 21 June 2022, and all are available on my Department’s website.