Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On the last point, I would be happy to consider that. I believe it should continue for the duration of this Oireachtas. It is an issue of huge importance and interest to the public. One of the things that is positive when it comes to mental health is that the stigma about talking about it has largely gone away. People are willing to talk about mental health in a way that was not the case ten or 20 years ago. I think that is down to the work the committee has done and the work that so many other people have done in this space, which really has made a huge difference.

The funding that goes into mental health has gone up by €200 million a year since 2011. There is nearly €1 billion a year going into mental health and that is going to continue. We have a commitment to continue to increase funding for mental health. I believe €55 million has been allocated for next year. Like a lot of things, we need to ensure that additional resources turn into better services and better outcomes. If we cannot follow where the money is going, then, quite frankly, we have a very serious problem. That is part of a wider range of reforms we are going to need to see in the health area over the next couple of years.

Long ago when we were in opposition, we used to talk about how we needed to have a health service where money followed the patient. I quickly learned as Minister for Health that we could not follow the money, never mind following the patient. Some of that is, sadly, down to software. One needs proper financial systems and ICT, and there has been under-investment in recent years. A good chunk of the €10 billion investment we have announced under Project Ireland 2040 over the next ten years is for investment in ICT, and this will be really important because it will allow us to follow the patient and the money through the system and bring about real changes. It is expensive but it is an investment that I believe will be worth it.

The health service was very badly burned by the whole personnel, payroll and related systems, PPARS, debacle, and did not invest in ICT for a very long time. It is extraordinary the extent to which so much of what goes on in our health service is still paper-based. If I ring Domino's pizza, it can tell from my phone number who I am, what my last order was and what my preferences are. However, in our health service we are still operating largely on the basis of paper for financial records and patient records and there are consequences as a result of that. The commitment is there to invest in ICT and there is a very good HSE information plan as to how it is going to do that over the next couple of years.

As regards Senator Richmond's comment on bilateral engagements with other Heads of Government and Heads of State and other Ministers, I would say that there have been thousands, if not tens of thousands, of such engagements. I certainly made it my business to meet one-to-one with every one of my counterparts. We meet regularly in Brussels and have quick bilaterals but the best ones are when one goes to their capitals or when they come to ours and we spend some time together. I am slightly more than half-way through doing this. The same goes for Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, the Tánaiste, Deputy Coveney, and Minister of State with responsibility for European affairs, Deputy McEntee. It is taking up a huge amount of time. I would say 20% to 25% of the Government's time is taken up with Brexit and Brexit-related issues. This is necessary because it is such a big issue which will impact on our society and economy in so many different ways. It is also a huge opportunity cost. If it was not for that decision of the British people to leave the European Union, all that time could be spent on the many other many pressing problems the country faces. That is just the way it has to be for the next little while.

I certainly appreciate the engagement that happens beyond Government. The different party leaders are plugged into their parliamentary groups - Deputy Howlin through the socialist group; Deputy Micheál Martin through the liberal group; and Deputy Eamonn Ryan through the Greens. They have been very useful and helpful in talking to their counterparts, some of whom are either Prime Ministers or opposition leaders, about Brexit. The engagement by the parliamentarians and by the different committees has been really useful as well and needs to continue.

Brexit, while being a huge issue and a really big deal for a small number of countries in the European Union, for the vast majority of countries in the European Union, it does not affect them very much. For the Baltic countries, Hungary or Greece, it is not on page 20 of the papers, never mind the front pages. We have to sensitise our counterparts in all those countries as to how big an issue this is for them. When I speak to counterparts in the Baltic countries, for example, they come to the conclusion that this is as big an issue for us as Russia is for them. When they begin to understand it on that level, they get it because they understand how important that solidarity is. This is the one thing that we really need them to have our backs on and we will have their backs on other issues. When one arrives at that level of understanding, I believe it puts one in a strong position.

The data centres use a lot of electricity. That will obviously have an impact on meeting our commitments on climate change. I would hope that a lot of that electricity could be provided by renewable sources, but I am told it is not as simple as that. What I definitely know is that there is going to be more data in the world, and data centres have to be somewhere. Does it not make sense that they be in Ireland, or at least in a place where the energy use is less than might be the case in a country where they might need to be cooled down or heated up? We seem to have the right climate for them. Similar arguments would apply in areas like beef, for example. Senator Horkan talked about the risk of relying so much on a number of big companies for tax receipts and for employment, whether it is Google, Facebook, Twitter or one of those technology companies. The fact that they have their data here is important too. Modern technology companies are pretty footloose, but when they keep their data in a particular country, it anchors them more to it. I believe that strategically, for those reasons, it is something that should be welcome.

We have finished, or we are about to finish, a cross-Government policy. Is that done yet?