GOVERNMENT IS EXPECTED to approve a request from Health Minister Stephen Donnelly to examine the establishment of an emerging health threats agency. 

Cabinet is meeting for the first time since the summer break in Avondale House in Wicklow. The Dáil is not due to resume until 20 September. 

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar will use today’s meeting to invite ministers to set out their priorities for the remainder of 2023, so that Cabinet as a whole can support them in those efforts.

Donnelly, who will be at today’s Cabinet meeting in his home county, requested that an expert will be appointed to design a dedicated emerging health threats unit/agency, which will focus on pandemic preparedness, infectious diseases and biological threats.

The plan comes after extensive engagement Donnelly has had at World Health Organisation (WHO) and at EU level, as well as a report from a group that was set to examine lessons from the Covid-19 response.

It is understood that the need for a dedicated entity that is not caught up in day-to-day operations has been stressed by various experts, with most EU countries having established, or are now establishing, dedicated units.

The head of the World Health Organisation recently urged countries to prepare for the next pandemic.

WHO director-general Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’s warning came after the group officially ended the Covid-19 global health emergency. 

Once approved by Cabinet today, it is expected that the scoping of the optimal design will be led by an external expert who will report directly to the health minister.

Report into Covid-19 response

A report into Ireland’s Covid-19 response, led by Professor Hugh Brady, was tasked with identifying key learnings from the public health response to the Covid-19 pandemic. It is expected to be published shortly.

It is believed that announcement about the overdue Covid-19 inquiry will also be announced by the end of this month. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has confirmed that the inquiry will be set up this year, initially with a scoping exercise.

Separately, Media Minister Catherine Martin will bring two memos tomorrow to Cabinet on matters pertaining to RTÉ.

First is an update for ministers on issues such as governance reforms, reports, licence fee collection amid matters. The second is RTÉ’s 2022 annual report.

It is widely expected that RTÉ will request a further financial bailout from the Government in the upcoming budget. This will be the first time in some weeks ministers will be sitting around the Cabinet table where they will be in a position to discuss the most recent updates in the controversy. 

RTÉ continues to grapple with the fallout from revelations earlier in the summer that it misreported the salary paid to star presenter Ryan Tubridy and failed to properly disclose €345,000 of payments to him between 2017 and 2022.

It was confirmed earlier this month that Tubridy would not be returning to his weekday radio show.

However the issue became a wider crisis for the national broadcaster amid further disclosures about RTÉ’s internal financial, accounting and governance practices and its expenditure on corporate hospitality for advertising clients. 

Business supports

Cabinet will also discuss a memo brought by Minister for Enterprise Trade & Employment Simon Coveney relating to energy supports for businesses.

He plans to open an energy support scheme for businesses impacted by the price of kerosene in 2022.

It follows the Government decision on May to extend TBESS supports to business reliant on Kerosene. The Business Users Support Scheme for Kerosene (BUSSK) will compensate eligible businesses for 50% of the increased cost of Kerosene purchased for heating their business premises during the period from 1 March to 31 December 2022, compared to the average retail price for the same period in 2021.

There will be a guaranteed minimum payment of €500.

Businesses that have a commercially rateable premises, and purchased a minimum of 1,000 litres of Kerosene during the eligible period, can apply to the scheme.

B&Bs that are approved under the Fáilte Ireland National Quality Assurance Framework are also eligible and businesses that have already received payments from the Temporary Business Energy Support Scheme can also apply to BUSSK. The deadline for applications is the end of October. 

Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien will also bring a memo to Cabinet today on the Local Property Tax (LPT) and the revision of the base rate for Local Authorities.

It means they each will get an increase of at least €1.5 million. Every local authority receives a minimum ‘baseline’ amount of funding from the Local Property Tax – this is then used for the day-to-day kind of services.

All 31 local authorities will see their baseline funding increase by a minimum €1.5 million in 2024, with the total increase amounting to €75.4 million.