Patient Files Dail Éireann — 2026-09-29 ============================================================ Malcolm Byrne (FF), Wicklow-Wexford I thank the Minister of State. I totally agree with him. The ambition is to follow wherever the patient receives care. We have to ensure that by 2032, whether you are in a GP surgery, a hospital, a community care setting or a nursing home, the medical records are easily accessible. I am concerned that we are talking about six years; it should be done more quickly. The timeframe has continued to be pushed out. In an era of modern technology, we should not be waiting that long, particularly given many countries, including some in the developing world, are far more advanced in the digitisation of records. The process will ultimately pay for itself, both financially and in lives saved. If the Minister of State is giving me the commitment that in 2032, no matter what health setting we are in, that data will be easily accessible, that will be key. I get that this is very sensitive data. The risk has to be managed. There has to be transparency around the process and it needs to be explained. I hope the Minister of State will raise this next point further with the Minister. We are talking about what is happening in the European health data space. We know that healthcare costs are continuing to go through the roof, but if we can effectively target resources, it makes much more sense. Let us use that data and marry it with effective clinical research. There is a lot of wonderful clinical research in Ireland. The clinical research centre in UCD, which the Minister of State will be familiar with, has done amazing work. If we can marry all of that data from our healthcare system with clinical research, it will result in huge financial savings, but we can also be world leaders in being able to use that data to tackle disease. I am broadly happy with the answer, but I will remain concerned if the timelines continue to slip. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-29/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-10-05T01:00:59+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-09-29