Rugby legend Wood leads 37-member team to drive home health message

A total of 37 members have been appointed to the Healthy Ireland Council charged with making the nation healthier.

The council, chaired by former rugby international, Keith Wood, held its inaugural meeting in Dublin Castle yesterday.

Its establishment follows the launch more than a year ago of Healthy Ireland: A Framework for Improved Health and Wellbeing 2013-2025. The council, established for an initial three-year period, will drive the health message.

Health Minister Dr James Reilly, who spoke at the council’s meeting in Dublin Castle yesterday, said it would save lives and add “quality years” to people’s lives.

Director general of the World Health Organisation, Dr Margaret Chan, who also addressed the meeting, said the council would introduce the changes needed to make Ireland a healthy country as well as a great country.

Dr Chan said she was delighted to see so many women on the council as women were agents of social change. “I have studied the framework and I can tell you it is the best I have ever seen,” she said.

She also said he Government was courageous in fully implementing the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control that would deliver the biggest blow to the tobacco industry. “You are doing the right thing. I promise you we will do everything possible to support your efforts,” she said.