Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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497. To ask the Minister for Health if his Department has reviewed potential models for enhanced North–South cooperation in healthcare delivery, including cross-Border hospital and emergency care arrangements. [62637/25]

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The Department of Health is committed to continuing close and productive cooperation with Northern Ireland on health and social care issues and I recently met with my counterpart in Northern Ireland, Minister Nesbitt, to discuss cooperation in the health sector.

There are a number of agreements in place covering specific specialist Cross Border initiatives that ensure that patients can receive a range of medical procedures/services as close to home as possible. This has helped reduce travel time, and the ease of access, which has been hugely beneficial for patients, their families and carers.

This includes agreements covering specific specialist services at Altnagelvin Hospital that ensure that patients can receive medical services as close to home as possible.

On cancer care, the North-West Cancer Centre at Altnagelvin Area Hospital is a £66m sterling capital development project that has been funded on a North-South basis and commenced providing services at the end of 2016. The HSE contributed €19 million to the building of the Centre and pays an agreed amount for Irish patients to be treated there. This cross-border initiative offers cancer patients treatment closer to their home in the North West. This service is governed by a Service Level Agreement (SLA) between the HSE and the Western Health and Social Care Trust and this was previously reviewed in 2019 and subsequently updated.

With regards to cardiac care, since May 2016, primary Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (pPCI) services have also been available at Altnagelvin Hospital for patients from County Donegal supporting lifesaving and urgent cardiac catherterisation treatment. The service is governed by a Service Level Agreement between Saolta, HSE and the Western Health and Social Care Trust in Northern Ireland and ensures patients within a 90-minute journey time can receive pPCI at the Altnagelvin Hospital following a ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction (heart attack) diagnosis in an emergency setting. In view of the distances this timeline is not achievable for transfers to Galway University Hospital (GUH).

On organ transplantation, a memorandum of understanding has been in place since March 2020 with Beaumont Hospital in relation to the delivery of paired living donor kidney transplantation services in Belfast for patients referred through the National Kidney Transplant Centre.

There are also two Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) in place between the National Ambulance Service and the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service, which cover cross border assistance during exceptionally busy periods, and emergency preparedness and cooperation. The two MOUs are currently being updated and renewed with a view to enhancing cooperation further for cross border assistance in responding to urgent and emergency calls during exceptionally busy periods; and preparedness and cooperation in responding to major emergencies.

The All-Island Congenital Heart Disease Network is another collaborative healthcare initiative between Ireland and Northern Ireland which aims to provide comprehensive and high-quality care for children with congenital heart disease across the island of Ireland. Since 2015, the All-Island Congenital Heart Disease Network has overseen transformative change including: the transfer of all Northern Ireland emergency, urgent and new elective surgery from Great Britain to CHI at Crumlin in Dublin; the opening of the newly refurbished Children’s Heart Centre at the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children in 2019; and, the establishment of a network of regional centres around the island where care can be delivered closer to home by paediatricians with a specialist expertise in congenital heart disease. Between 2015 and August 2025, a total of 11,958 procedures were carried out at CHI at Crumlin on paediatric cardiac patients from Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Additionally, there is also ongoing engagement at official level, and this includes work on the exploration of those areas of health cooperation that could be further expanded to benefit residents on the island of Ireland on a cross-border basis.

This includes continuing engagement between the Departments of Health in both jurisdictions in the context of the North South Ministerial Council (NSMC) and a revised NSMC Health Work Programme has now been developed and will be presented for approval at the next NSMC Health and Food Safety sectoral meeting.

To conclude, working collaboratively to address healthcare challenges in both jurisdictions is of the utmost importance and, as such, enhancing North-South cooperation will continue to be a priority for my department.