Patient Files
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-29
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Neale Richmond (FG), Dublin Rathdown

I am grateful to the Deputy for his comments, which I will bring directly back to the Minister, Deputy Carroll MacNeill.
As the Deputy is aware, the digitisation of health records is already under way and being delivered in three stages. The HSE health app is designed to provide patients with greater access to their own health information. The national shared care record is connecting data that is already in digital format, albeit stored in separate data silos. It is helping healthcare professionals to see more information about their patients regardless of where they were treated previously. That is happening today. The national electronic health record, EHR, will build on those foundations to provide a comprehensive longitudinal record across all publicly funded hospital and community services.
The timeline outlined is realistic, but it is also there to make sure it is all encompassing. This will be done on a phased basis to ensure that it is done in the totality by 2030, but many of these advances will be made before that. That is why the EHR programme is ambitious. The health service is complex and successful delivery requires more than technology. It requires clinical and operational leadership. It requires changes in how we operate today to more standardised processes, high-quality data, staff training, and managing robust technology and infrastructure that is cyber resilient. It also requires sustained investment. Reflecting this, the Government has significantly increased funding for digital health and technology in recent years, building strong foundations to support digital transformation. Those same digital foundations can also support the research and innovation that the Deputy has outlined.
Under the European health data space, health data may be reused for approved purposes with a secure and tightly governed framework. Appropriate safeguards will be essential to ensure that we maintain that public trust in all that we do. However, our goal is clear. Information should follow the patient. It should be available to healthcare professionals wherever and whenever it is needed to support the delivery of safe patient care. By driving key digital health initiatives, such as the HSE health app, the shared care record, the national EHR, electronic prescribing and related digital care initiatives, we are building a modern and more integrated health service and creating the conditions for delivering better care, better access, stronger research, responsible innovation and more evidence-based decision-making. The ability of the Deputy to continue to hold this Government to account is vital in achieving those goals.

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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