John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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1423. To ask the Minister for Health If a decision has been made on the location for the main laboratory for genetic testing in Ireland; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14502/24]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 1335, 1336 and 1423 together.

The Government and I are fully committed to improving genetics services in Ireland. One of the key ambitions of the National Strategy for Accelerating Genetic and Genomic Medicine in Ireland is to build a strong patient and family-centred national genetics service that can be accessed equitably across the country and lifespan of patients. An important element of achieving this is increasing genomic laboratory capabilities in Ireland.

The National Strategy has a 5 year implementation phase which is being led by the HSE National Genetics and Genomics Office (NGGO). In 2024, the NGGO will concentrate on six priority deliverables defined for the year. One of these priority deliverables is the continued development of equitable national genetics and genomics services, including genomic laboratory capabilities and associated bioinformatics. This year, the NGGO will focus on the identification of current test providers (both national and international) used to meet the genetic and genomic testing needs of Irish patients. The information gathered through this process and a clinical operating model (which is currently being developed) will enable the future development of genetic and genomic laboratory capacity.

As the current focus of work is on assessment of existing capacity and need, a decision on the location of a new genomic laboratory has therefore not yet been made.

Another priority deliverable for 2024 is the development of a National Genomic Test Directory for Rare and Inherited Diseases. The NGGO have engaged with potential service users to understand the clinical need, to ensure this test directory appropriately meets that need. This directory will be a key enabling document used to inform the development of any new genomic laboratory capacity.