Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)
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368. To ask the Minister for Health the details of each information and communications technology contract, excluding support and maintenance yearly contracts, with a total contract value of over €1 million since 2014; the number of these contracts that have gone fully live and are fully operational; the final costs of these contracts compared with the original tender price; the stage payments that have been made in respect of each contract that is not fully operational to date; when they are expected to be fully operational; the contracts that were entered into and stage payments made in circumstances in which it may be anticipated that these contracts may not become fully operational as originally intended; the number and value of stage payments in each of these cases; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17663/19]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Firstly, I can confirm that my Department has not entered into any ICT contracts over €1m directly since 2014. Secondly, no statutory bodies under the aegis of my Department have entered into specified ICT contracts over €1m since 2014, with the exception of the HSE and the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland (NMBI).

The HSE has entered into 94 contracts in excess of €1m and the NMBI has entered into one contract in excess of €1m. Due to the volume of information available, details are provided to the Deputy in the links that follow. In the delivery of capital ICT projects, the HSE follows the principle of payment upon receipt of deliverables. For basic technical infrastructure or software licences, this means the vendor does not receive payment until HSE staff have confirmed receipt of the goods. Similarly, for large ICT applications, such as the delivery of new systems, the HSE normally pays the vendor only when the system has gone live in a particular site. In some cases, there may be agreed milestones prior to go live that trigger payments, but even in these cases vendors do not get paid until the HSE confirms that the deliverables corresponding to that milestone have been received.

Investment in ICT is a key enabler of my Department's eHealth strategy- An eHealth Strategy for Ireland, the HSE's Health and Information Plan, the NMBI's Statement of Strategy 2017-2019 and the cross-party Sláintecare health service reform programme.  The contracts awarded have included vital ICT infrastructure and development necessary to provide up-to-date clinical systems and safe patient care at all levels of service provision.

I trust that this is of assistance to the Deputy.