Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Sorry for going into the weeds on this, Chair, but I very much agree with Deputy Bruton. The former head of digital strategy in the HSE, Martin Curley, was someone who I listened to with respect on this because he was doing exactly that. I was at events where he brought in the medical device industries we have here, which are highly resourced and capable, as well as the HSE, the hospital groups and so on. Before that, in the previous decade, he organised an event here for the European Commission called Open Innovation 2.0. He argued at that conference, and the European Commission picked up on it, that a quadruple helix of innovation is needed - this is a complex term - where the State, industry, academia and civil society get together and work in an integrated way. That is when innovation can occur in a very fruitful, effective way. Coming back to what I said earlier about our digital strategy, I do not think we have implemented that. We have an advantage as a small State because we can get the key actors in a room in the way we did for the waste strategy, which delivered. We need to do the same on the health digital side. It could be applied in other areas as well.

This is also about the patients. They have to be happy that where a device is measuring and monitoring them, they can share their data in a way that it is not in some commercial interest but in their interest. The four elements of co-operation are needed to ensure patients realise they are at the centre of everything we do.