Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair. We will get the exact numbers from the officials now but I agree with him that Ireland is a laggard when it comes to e-health, and significantly so. It was quite rightly called out in the Sláintecare report. There is a substantial amount of money being invested. There is an additional €90 million being invested next year in the very points the Chair has raised. We all saw the very serious disruption to patient care caused by the cyberattack and that obviously had a significant follow-on financial impact. If we are going to solve this problem we must be honest about it and say we do not have the IT systems we should have. We do not have integrated systems. They are better in the hospitals than in the community. In some hospitals and specialties, they are good. Maternity is doing very well. The national imaging management system is good. There are other hospitals I have been in where NCHDs have told me of queuing for access to laptops in order access patient files. That is just not acceptable. In community, many areas are still working, as the Chair quite rightly says, on the basis of paper files. Some of the GP systems are very good.

There is a refresh of the e-health strategy taking place. Much more money is going to be invested into it. We are hiring for two very important roles, namely, a chief technology and transformation officer and a chief information security officer. This year with there was an additional €55 million allocated to respond to the cyberattack. We are taking it seriously. A great deal of money is being invested in it, but we just have to be honest and say that the current situation is not good enough. I speak to doctors, nurses and allied healthcare professionals all over the country. One of the things they always raise is how frustrating it is trying to do their jobs with the outdated systems. There is a plan being developed and money going in but I am not going to sit here and pretend it is where needs to be.