David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will ask Mr. Kearns about another issue, that of IT infrastructure, which, as he mentioned, is also important. We understand that the health information Bill will come before the committee in a few weeks. That is very important. I am a great believer in individual health identifiers and centralised referral systems. That now needs to be managed regionally, when we have the RHAs in place, to make best use of the capacity we have across the system. I am a great believer in all of that as well.

There is an ongoing debate about what we do with the overall system change. Do we go for a single integrated system or do we have interoperability between the different systems, which would cost less money and may be quicker to do? I probably lean towards the latter, but I am trying to get a sense of how Mr. Kearns sees that working. What is his view? How important is it? Where does his priority lie in that space?