The third seminar in QUB School of Law and DCU School of Law and Government Joint Seminar series: “Reflections on a United Ireland”.

In discussions of constitutional change on the island of Ireland, health is usually top or close to the top of the policy agenda. Both jurisdictions on this island face similar challenges and both are struggling to reform systems that are simply not sustainable. The population of the North attach a huge value to their free- at-the-point-of-delivery healthcare system, but is it intrinsically better than the system in the Republic? What do we actually know about comparable health outcomes? To date, any limited discussions of an all-island healthcare system have been poorly informed, and dominated by dubious political rhetoric. This paper sets out some of the key challenges and opportunities that future convergence would have to address. Future speakers will be

• 5 May – Prof Colin Harvey (Queens University Belfast)
• 9 June – Prof John Doyle. (Dublin City University)

Previous webinars can be accessed here.

Speaker Bio:
Professor Deirdre Heenan is Professor of Social Policy at Ulster University and has published widely on healthcare, education policy, social care and devolution.   In 2011 she was appointed by the Northern Ireland Health Minister to join a five-strong panel of experts to oversee a radical review of Health and Social Care in Northern Ireland. In 2012 she was appointed to the Irish President’s Council of State as one of the seven personal nominees of President Michael D Higgins. Her 2019 report for the Nuffield Trust (with Mark Dayan)  Change or Collapse: Lessons from the drive to reform health and social care In Northern Ireland, is widely regarded as the most significant academic contribution to the contemporary policy debate on health and social care reform in NI.  In the context of the post-Brexit debate on potential political and constitutional change, she has been the foremost academic researcher exploring the question of health cooperation on the island of Ireland.