Mr. Muiris O'Connor:

I fully agree with the Deputy about the importance of information sharing. It is recognised by us. To deliver integrated care, which is the core focus of Sláintecare, we must have integrated data. The Deputy said that hospital groups have information systems. They do not. The individual hospitals have different information systems of various quality, none of which is up to the best practice to which we aspire. As Mr. Reid said, we learned enormously about the lessons of information in the roll-out of the vaccine programme and developed a very comprehensive national approach to the vaccine database. The Minister for Health has secured Government approval to progress a health information Bill, building on the lessons of the vaccine programme, in particular, and supporting the Sláintecare vision of integrated data for integrated care. The legislation will propose the adoption of the personal public service number, PPSN, as the key identifier and will mandate a duty to share information to support the integration of care and the hand-offs that are there.