Committee for the Protection of Animals Used for Scientific Purposes

In accordance with EU and national legal requirements, the functions of the National Committee are to:

• Advise the HPRA and institutional animal welfare bodies on matters dealing with the acquisition, breeding, accommodation, care and use of scientific animals. The procedure for advising Animal Welfare Bodies is set out in the attached link.
• Ensure the sharing of best practices in Ireland and with other national committees of Member States within the European Union.
• Exchange information on the operation of animal welfare bodies and project evaluation.

Unlike the position is some other EU member states where there are several competent authorities involved in project evaluation (e.g. different authorities in various regions of a country) requiring a coherent approach to their evaluation nationally, in Ireland the HPRA is the sole competent authority for the decisions on project applications nationally.

The Terms of Reference of the Committee are outlined in the following link.

The National Committee usually meets twice a year. Meetings may be held in person or virtually. Reports of meetings of the committee are published following their adoption at the subsequent meeting. Meeting reports of past meetings are available here.

Membership of the National Committee

Committee members are appointed by the Minister for Health.

The membership of the committee is as follows:

Eilís Dowd, Michael C. Gaynor (Chairman), Alison J Hanlon, Gillian O'Meara, John Kelly, Ngaire Dennison, Jose Sanchez Morgado, Ian O'Connor and Frank O'Sullivan.

Members possess specialist expertise and competence relevant to the functions of the committee. They are independent in the performance of their duties and, in accordance with the national legislation, they may not be subject to the direction of any other person or body in the performance of their duties.

Please note: The National Committee is not a committee of the HPRA. It is an independent committee with a specific remit as outlined above. The HPRA provides the committee with secretariat support. 

Contact us

If you wish to contact the National Committee, you can email ncsap@hpra.ie.Please note that the HPRA’s administrative team has the task to monitor this mailbox on behalf of the National Committee. In monitoring the mailbox on behalf of the National Committee, the HPRA administrators act independently of the HPRA agency and do not engage directly with the correspondent to address matters raised; therefore the HPRA agency is not aware of such matters. The National Committee meets infrequently, and while the correspondence will be forwarded within a few days, the Committee itself might not be in a position to consider and respond to any matter raised until it has discussed it.