Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Corbridge for his presentation. He referred to the evolution, which is particularly slow. It is hard for many of us to understand why the evolution has been so slow. We have been speaking about an individual health identifier for many years. It was legislated for, as Mr. Corbridge stated, in 2014. What is the difficulty with the Department of Social Protection? Why are we still in a situation where the HSE is trying to negotiate on data sharing?

My next question relates to the urgent need to ensure electronic referrals and record-keeping at primary care level in particular. Mr. Corbridge stated 40% of GPs use electronic referrals This is very low in this day and age. What needs to happen to increase this figure to 100%? Mr. Corbridge referred to the fact that 47,000 health staff have no access to any digital solution. This is quite a shocking figure in this day and age, when the vast majority of workers and teenagers have access to digital solutions for whatever work they are doing. Why is this number so large? What needs to happen to expedite this to ensure standards are increased to an acceptable modern level in the HSE?