Ireland unveils new AI health strategy, clinician oversight maintained

Ireland has launched its first national plan for using artificial intelligence in health and social care. The AI for Care strategy sets a five‑year path for deploying AI across clinical care, operations, research and public health, and is a pillar of the government’s Digital for Care agenda.

Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill is calling the initiative “an important step toward creating a safer, smarter and more sustainable healthcare service.”

Carroll MacNeill said the government aims to integrate AI “in ways that are safe, transparent” and that “strengthen, rather than replace, the vital human relationships” in care.

Speaking at Dublin’s Mater Misericordiae University Hospital, she stressed that AI tools “are intended to support clinicians and enhance clinical judgement,” not supplant it. AI, she added, offers “a rare opportunity to reshape how care is delivered – making it more timely, more personalised and more equitable.”

Clinical care and…