Cormac Devlin, An Cathaoirleach: I welcome the witnesses from the Institute of Public Health, IPH. We are joined by Ms Suzanne Costello, chief executive officer; Dr. Jenny Mack, public health medicine consultant; Ms Sinéad Ward, director of finance and governance; and Dr. Paul Kavanagh, IPH board member and consultant in public health medicine in the national health intelligence unit of the HSE.

I will invite Ms Costello to give her opening statement, which will be followed by questions from members of the committee. Each member has a five-minute slot to ask questions and for witnesses to respond...

As the witnesses will probably be aware, the committee will publish the opening statement on our website. MPs participating in this committee meeting from a jurisdiction outside the State are advised that they should be mindful of their domestic law and how it may apply to their participation in proceedings.

Ms Suzanne Costello: I thank the Chair, Deputies, Senators and Members of Parliament for the opportunity to attend the committee and discuss our work. It is our first opportunity to do so, and we are delighted to be here. The IPH was set up as a North-South agency prior to the signing of the Good Friday or Belfast Agreement in 1998, and in 2023 we marked 25 years of helping to shape public health policy in Ireland and Northern Ireland. The impetus to establish the institute came from public health officials who recognised that a geographical border offered no protection against disease or ill health, and that policymakers, North and South, faced similar challenges in promoting and supporting public health.

Public health is often described as the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health at population level. This requires expertise across a range of specialist domains, including health improvement, infectious disease control, screening and service development. The remit of the institute is to inform public policy with the aim of improving population health and reducing health inequalities. Health inequalities are the unfair and avoidable differences in people's health across different groups in society caused by social, economic, and environmental factors, for example, differences in life expectancy or the prevalence of chronic diseases. As such, we work across a range of public health policy areas, including, but not limited to, alcohol harm, tobacco control, skin cancer prevention, physical activity, ageing and gambling harm, as well as the broader socioeconomic and environmental determinants of health....

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