Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I commend the progress made on this by the Department. As the Minister rightly alluded, we had a considerable battle to get this approved, and I was gratified about a year ago to see the Minister's colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, issue a reply indicating that the present calculation of the benefits was double the benefits estimated at the time it was approved. That vindicates how this was the right decision to make.

My one request to the Department is that we look at this asset as one where its potential needs to be developed. I think in particular of health services where, with modern technology, you can have predictive health, screening, remote consultation and monitoring. People could be facilitated by being delivered health services while remaining independent in their homes where they feel more comfortable and in control of what is happening to them. While Covid showed a welcome increase in such remote delivery, it has fallen away since as far as I can see. There is an onus on the Minister's Department to create a group that would engage in horizon scanning for how this asset we have put in, which is already generating more benefit that anyone anticipated, could be used to deliver services more remotely. That is just health.

Similar things could be said about education. We could look at public services and see opportunities. However, I do not see who in Government is charged with thinking of how we can best deploy this asset to deliver more balanced population growth, which is a big ambition of ours, to revive activity in more remote areas and to make sure in the long term that our health service is capable of responding to an ageing population. This may not apply generally, but I have heard from the UK that a former Minister has deemed the model of health being delivered as unsustainable in the long term and unless they move to more technology-based solutions, the system will become overwhelmed. That may be a call for someone to put it into their programme for Government, but I think the Minister's Department is pivotal to understanding the power of this network and what it could do for the future.