Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy for the question. I heard this morning that AI is front and centre at Davos as well. It is certainly coming to the fore very rapidly. It will have potentially radical benefits, be they in diagnostics, in some advanced care, or robotics for procedures, and as we move forward with genetics, genomics and genome sequencing. AI will move more and more to the fore. What is critical for Ireland is for us to make sure that we capture these benefits for patients. We must have state-of-the-art e-health and digital infrastructure in place. The reality is Ireland is not just a laggard but a significant laggard in the EU and the developed world in this regard.

To that end, we have been doing a lot of work on a new e-health and digital strategy. I will launch that strategy this year. It is being finalised at present. It will be a six- or seven-year strategy. We have had a lot of consultation with experts and potential providers to see what platforms can be used. We are doing it in parallel with the health information Bill, which I will bring to the Government shortly and will include the matter of unique patient identifiers. It will establish a central agency that will be able to collate data because, ultimately, AI is data driven, as I know the Deputy knows very well.

There have already been one or two projects, despite the lack of national infrastructure we need. Last December, the Mater announced it was the first hospital to use AI for patient scans. I might give the Deputy more detail on that in my response.

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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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.

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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It is an ongoing process and it is a rapidly emerging field. There are areas we are looking at very closely such as cybersecurity, as we discussed, ethical AI and the guidelines on the use of that, patient consent, and full information on how information may be used. We can do population-based analyses with or without AI. Having that population-based information will be invaluable for public health responses and investment in public health. There is no doubt AI can enhance that. There also would be AI applications for individualised care around genome sequencing and matching potential treatments to potential conditions that people have. This area will need very clear consent and regulation. The health information Bill is very significant legislation and a lot of the regulatory framework for digital health and e-health will be contained within that.