Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)

I will just add that the app is really important. While the Internet signal is historically terrible in committee rooms in the basement in LH 2000, it is an app you can download. You need a MyGovID to sign in. Obviously, I expect everybody in the room has downloaded it and is part of the group of 80,000 people who have committed to registering their personal health information. The functionality of it would be easier to see were the signal slightly better in the committee room, but I have talked to people who have downloaded it and they can see, for example, all of their medications on it. Sometimes taking complex medication can be difficult. It can be hard to manage, especially when you turn up to a new healthcare provider, to describe what your medication is and what that happens to be. If you log in with your MyGovID, which is secure, you will be able to see locally, wherever you are, where the emergency care centres are and what the primary care options are. You can also see your vaccination record, from both a flu perspective and a Covid perspective. I was embarrassed to realise that there was a bit of gap between my vaccinations and I will not let that happen again this year. You can see your records. It started out being piloted on the maternity side and people could book appointments. We are rolling out increased functionality all of the time. We will get to the point where you can book appointments - where you will need to book appointments - through the app. I would encourage everybody to get it, because this is stage one of this electronic health record, to the extent that Members can put it in their newsletters or email updates to their constituents. If we are going to get to an electronic health record, certainly everyone in the Oireachtas needs to download the app but we also need to start encouraging people to do that. I hope they will see the increased functionality over time and that they will begin to see some of the benefit of it. That is stage one so please go for it.