Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is such a good question. There are many parts to this. One is general cybersecurity. It can be imagined, following the cyber-breach we had, there has been very significant investment in and strengthening of cybersecurity across our health services.

There are many subtleties to AI, for example, ethical AI. We would be handing over some form of advisory capacity, decision-making capacity, or whatever it might be, to algorithms. There has to be appropriate oversight of that. Not only that, there has to be appropriate input to the design of that in terms of ethical AI guidelines. A framework for ethical AI guidelines was brought to the Government very recently. It is something we have to approach carefully.

The Mater project was clinically led. It trialled the use of AI software and looked at 15,000 patient scans to assess the potential to speed up care in the emergency department. Early results indicate improved diagnostic accuracy, streamlined workflow and reduced time required to provide life-saving treatments, so initial indications are very positive.

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