Mr. Damien McCallion:

That is a good question. I will say two things in that regard. In the short term, we are rolling out the national cancer information system, which is now in 22 of the 26 hospitals, with four hospitals remaining. That system is focused more on the drugs and treatment. With regard to the benefits of such a system, from talking to patients the other day who went from one hospital to another, at least in terms of oncology and the drug piece, that information is available across hospitals.

To take a wider perspective, we are currently finalising a business case. We are going through a fairly robust approval process with the Government for a full electronic health record for Ireland. We are bottom of the EU when it comes to the digitalisation of health records. We have a new strategy, namely, Digital for Care 2030. We have a team of up to 20 people now working full time on this business case and its implementation and we have made senior appointments. We are confident, through working with the Department, that we are aligned on this. We are determined to try to progress it. It is in the programme for Government, so we are positive to that. It is a big programme, which will amount to significant expenditure over the years. Ultimately, it will mean that cancer patients will have a lot of other interactions with the health system, such as with their GPs and so on.

While the cancer information system is a first step, we need to get to something that is much more integrated because, as the Deputy said, patients from the north west, where I live, will go to Dublin. They could go to two centres in Dublin. They could have cancer treatment and other treatments happening at the same time. That is our plan and we have a clear direction around it. It is a commitment in the programme for Government. We are working through that preliminary business case. We put a tender out for pre-market consultation earlier this year and we hope to place a prior information notice, PIN, to get into a shortlist of venders. We have appointed a strategic partner for the project as well. We have taken a lot of action to try to build momentum behind the project because it is a crucial step not just for cancer, but for a lot of our services.