Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Ehealth is an area in which we are very far behind internationally. I believe Ireland is a laggard in e-health. We have invested a significant amount this year, but in fairness to those leading on that strategy, we got hit with the cyberattack and the extent of the damage that the cyberattack caused probably is not fully understood. It caused absolute chaos in the system. The very people - and they are excellent - who were going to be pushing on the ehealth agenda ended up having to respond to the cyberattack. Therefore, I think we are behind.

However, a digital transformation team within the HSE is examining innovation. We must also recognise that, during the pandemic, important changes were made. We were told that telemedicine could not be done; now it is being done right across the system. It is being embraced within the system and by patients. For years, we were told that technically, it was not possible to move to eprescribing. I am told that it was done in approximately three weeks under the intense pressure of the pandemic. Through the vaccine programme we now have unique patient identifiers, something we have never had before. There are exciting pilots going on in terms of diagnostics and sensors being used in people's homes to monitor chronic diseases they may have. They are being monitored in the community by public health nurses or specialists. Therefore, a lot of innovation is happening, but there is a vast amount of work required to bring Ireland up to the level that we need to be at. Mr. Watt and I are having ongoing discussions about how we begin to push that, and have a clear and ambitious strategy and implement that.