Smurfit Kappa helps aid Irish COVID-19 recovery by supporting medical research and children’s nutrition initiatives

Smurfit Kappa has made donations to help two very worthy causes as Ireland enters the third phase of the Covid-19 reopening.

The packaging leader has donated €300,000 to the University College Dublin (UCD) School of Medicine to support a clinical trial aimed at finding a suitable treatment for Covid-19.

UCD is currently working on a range of initiatives to identify solutions to the Covid-19 pandemic which include exploring ways to expand Ireland’s testing capacity, manufacturing reagents, developing national contact tracing capability, and investigating new treatments to tackle the disease.

The trial which Smurfit Kappa is supporting is an international collaborative effort being led by Prof. Paddy Mallon, Director of the UCD Centre for Experimental Pathogen Host Research and specialist in infectious diseases.

Smurfit Kappa also joined forces with the Irish Government’s national DEIS* programme to support its Good Grub initiative. The Good Grub scheme was set up to help children from disadvantaged areas who were missing out on vital nutrition during the closure of schools.

So far, over 75,000 nutritious fruit and vegetable parcels have been sent to the families of DEIS school children around Ireland. Smurfit Kappa made a donation of €50,000 towards this very worthy cause which is set to continue until the schools reopen in September.

Speaking about the recent donations, Tony Smurfit, Smurfit Kappa Group CEO, said: “Alongside our company remaining fully operational as an essential service provider throughout lockdown, our employees have been very active in many initiatives designed to help communities deal with the impact of the coronavirus.

“These included providing a range of social distancing products for schools, hospitals and shops and making food donations for vulnerable groups. I am immensely proud of their efforts and how they have really gone the extra mile throughout the pandemic.”

* The Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools (DEIS) programme is an Irish Government initiative which aims to help communities at risk of disadvantage and social exclusion.