Health Information Bill 2024: Committee Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2026-03-03
============================================================

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (FG), Dún Laoghaire

Section 21 mandates the HSE, following consultation, to prepare guidelines for the purposes of the Bill, including on the digital format and standards required in respect of Part 2, on the statutory duty to share. I thank the Senators for their interest in and engagement on the quality of information shared in respect of patients. While I have reported important progress to Senators today, I acknowledge their ongoing interest in this. I will continue to report to the Seanad on the progress on the sharing of health information across the system in terms of both section 38 hospitals and private hospitals. With respect to where I see a difficulty and cause for concern, I commit to updating Senators both publicly in the Seanad and privately on the progress or lack thereof in respect of improving the data-sharing culture in health services generally.
The amendment provides for the HSE to consult HIQA in the preparation of guidelines in relation to the Act. While the HSE has been tasked with the preparation of guidelines under the Bill, the amendment acknowledges the central role of HIQA in developing health information standards within healthcare settings as well as the importance and necessity of drawing from and building on national expertise to ensure effective implementation of the legislation.
I acknowledge and appreciate the strong engagement from HIQA in respect of this legislation, including in the wider context of giving full effect to the EU regulation on the European health data space, of which this Bill is the first step. As part of this work, HIQA leads on a number of grant-funded work packages, including on data quality and the development of a metadata catalogue.

---

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/seanad/2026-03-03/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:42+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-03