Ms Bairbre Nic Aongusa:

I will first address the point made about interdepartmental work. The Deputy is right that silos are often difficult to break. One of the biggest challenges for us across the civil and public service is to work across Departments, boundaries and agencies. Our interdepartmental group consists of 13 Departments. From the outset we have developed a whole-of-government approach to the preparation of the policy and we are committed to working with Departments on the policy.

In terms of e-health, another unit in my Department is responsible for digital development and it has been very active with the Department of Health in efforts to further the e-health agenda. A number of pilot projects are currently being developed and they will take advantage of the opportunities offered by connectivity. The Department, for example, identified an opportunity to use the connectivity provided by our broadband connection points network to develop a pilot e-health solution for a number of islands. My Department is currently supporting a working group that is overseeing the establishment of dedicated e-health virtual consultation rooms, which will be located within the broadband connection points on both Tory Island and Clare Island. This is a collaborative effort with membership of the group consisting of representatives from the HSE, Donegal County Council and Mayo County Council. I stress that the initiative is being led by our colleagues in the Department of Rural and Community Development. The islands unit links in but other units, as I said in my opening statement, within the Department of Rural and Community Development are very much alive to the need to include the needs of the islands, and island communities, in all of our policies across both community development and rural economic development.

In this collaborative effort e-health consultation rooms are being developed in consultation with local stakeholders and relevant clinical staff. The e-health facilities will complement the HSE Attend Anywhere initiative and will be suitable for a range of virtual consultations. The initiative is being developed on Clare Island. An initial steering group met during the summer with the Cliara local development company, the Western Development Commission, HSE, NUIG and Cisco with a view to establishing a living lab on Clare Island. The discussions are ongoing. That is one example of very effective cross-government and cross-departmental work happening on the islands and being spearheaded by the Department of Rural and Community Development. I acknowledge that interdepartmental and cross-departmental work are always a challenge because each Department has its own priorities and agenda. Our challenge when we work on the national strategy is to tap into agendas that other Departments want to be prioritised, such as e-health, and we come to them and ask how can we help them to pursue their e-health priorities by using what we have got on the islands, namely the broadband connection points and island communities who are keen to work in a new way. We have successfully developed that in e-health. We will take that mindset and approach to the meetings of the interdepartmental committee in our discussions with other Departments.

On the whole-of-government piece we, as a Department, do not have responsibility for water systems or energy on the islands. The roles of the local authorities are very important. Again, our Department sees the local authorities as key stakeholders. They are key stakeholders for us right across the country in terms of furthering the objectives of the Our Rural Future policy. In particular, in terms of the islands, we engage specifically with the local authorities that have island responsibilities too.