Swann seeks meeting with Donnelly over cross-Border travel

The North’s Minister for Health has criticised his counterpart in the Republic for failing to meet him to discuss concerns around cross-Border and international travel.

Robin Swann said it was "disappointing" that the Republic's Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly had "encouraged our officials to meet" rather than taking part himself.

Earlier on Monday, speaking on BBC Radio Ulster’s Nolan Show, Mr Swann said there was “still concern about travel from the Republic of Ireland into Northern Ireland” and he had asked for a meeting with Mr Donnelly to discuss this and “to see what we could do jointly with regard to messaging”.

However he said that “unfortunately I have been unable to secure that meeting with Stephen Donnelly yet ... it was over a fortnight ago, now he has encouraged our officials to meet – they do anyway, they meet regularly at chief medical officer level and our public health authority level.”

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Mr Swann said this was “disappointing, I reported it back to the Executive and they expressed their disappointment as well that that was the reaction we received.”

A spokesman for Mr Donnelly said the Minister “has ongoing engagement with Minister Swann, and responded to his most recent letter saying that there should be continued further engagement at official level ahead of a ministerial meeting.

“Officials met again as recently as Friday last, to discuss in particular the variant first discovered in India.”

The spokesman added: “Minister Donnelly intends to have a meeting with Minister Swann this week if possible.”

Mr Swann’s concerns were echoed by the North’s First Minister, Arlene Foster, on Monday, who said discussions were needed between Ministers on both sides of the Border.

She said there needed to be a conversation around the prevalence of the Indian variant and “around cross-Border travel because over these past few weeks our highest incidence is in Londonderry and Strabane, therefore we need to try and understand that.

“The only way to do that is have a meeting,” Ms Foster said. “We were disappointed when Stephen Donnelly came back and said that he wasn’t going to meet but his officials were going to meet.

“Really this requires ministerial leadership and I do hope that he reconsiders on that.”

The North’s Deputy First Minister, Michelle O’Neill, said that throughout the pandemic “the joined up-ness across the island hasn’t been where it should have been” and said it was “unfortunate that Stephen Donnelly hasn’t made time to meet with Robin Swann”.

She said she would “encourage that meeting to happen” and the issue would be raised with the Taoiseach, adding that while there had been engagement with the Taoiseach, Tánaiste and others, “I do think that we need to have health-minister-to-health-minister conversation around what is the current state of play, what can we do together?

“There are issues in Border counties, so can we do more together around collective messaging?” she said.

In the Republic, the Department of Health reported 345 new cases of Covid-19 on Monday, while 53 were recorded in the North. – Additional reporting: PA.