John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)
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Question 209: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children if her Department has carried out studies regarding the impact of immigration on the health service; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [21770/06]

Seán Power (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)
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The Department of Health and Children has not carried out studies into the impact of immigration on the health service, inter alia because it is not currently possible to identify recent immigrants in routine health information systems. The Department of Health and Children has led out on a pilot project on the feasibility of collecting ethnicity information from routine systems such as Hospital In-Patient Enquiry (HIPE) and maternity (perinatal) systems. This is currently being completed and written up.

While the project itself relates to ethnicity rather than immigration, the information gained from the use of an ethnic identifier will help to establish baseline data on services for minority communities and will be applied towards identification of needs, measurement of uptake of services and evaluation of outcomes.