Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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215. To ask the Minister for Health if he has held any meetings or discussions either within his Department or with external experts to seek to ascertain the reason that Ireland is suffering from an increase or perceived increase in the death rate in comparison with previous years; if he will detail the dates upon which these meetings took place; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4894/23]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The Department of Health and the HSE keep under review a range of population health and epidemiological indicators to assess the impact of health threats in Ireland.

The Department of Health does not produce estimates of excess mortality. However, the Department closely monitors estimates of excess mortality which are published by a range of different sources. 

Ireland continues to participate in EuroMOMO, a European mortality monitoring activity, aiming to detect and measure excess deaths related to seasonal influenza, pandemics and other public health threats. The latest published data from EuroMOMO is available here.

As per previous winter respiratory viral seasons when influenza and other respiratory viruses circulate at high levels in Ireland and Europe contributing to excess mortality, it is anticipated that excess mortality during the 2022/2023 winter period will be reported as deaths from late 2022 and early 2023 are registered.

The Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) include an update on excess mortality in their weekly Influenza Surveillance Report.

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) publishes official statistics on mortality in Ireland and publishes quarterly and yearly statistics on registered deaths through their Vital Statistics publications. The latest published data is for Quarter 2 2022 and data is provisional. Provisional data for Quarter 3 2022 will be published in March and for Quarter 4 2022 in June. This will include data on cause of death. 

The Department of Health and HSE will continue to work closely with all stakeholders to monitor trends in mortality in Ireland.