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Una was appointed Director of Technology Ireland in June 2018. Technology Ireland, a trade association within Ibec, is the largest and most influential tech sector representative group in Ireland.
Una is the current Vice President of DIGITALEUROPE and previously served as an executive board member. She is on the Board of Directors of FIT Ltd (Fastrack into Technology) and has extensive lobbying experience both at National and European levels.
Una is a Dublin City University STEM graduate with a master’s in management from Smurfit Business School.
Kieran is the General Manager & Co-Founder of HealthBeacon, a Hamilton Beach Health company, which develops smart tools for managing medication.
He is also a Non-Executive Director at Output Sports - an Irish company that are revolutionising the way athletic staff optimise sports performance.
He also Chairs IBEC's Digital Health Working Group helping to define strategy and promote awareness of the wider digital health sector.
Ciara Finlay joined Irish Medtech in May 2015 to represent businesses from some of Ireland’s worldclass manufacturers and startups. She manages a number of working groups and forums in strategic areas such as, digital health, market access and HTA, as well as diversity and representation.
Ciara has worked in Ibec, one of Europe’s top three lobby groups, since 2012, and previously held roles in Ibec as a Corporate Affairs and Communications Executive, and the EU Presidency Planning Team.
She also sits on a number national and international committees, including, the Health Information and Quality Authority Scientific Advisory Group, the MedTech Europe Digital Health Committee, and the MedTech Europe AI Working Group.
She earned a BA in Sociology and Social Policy from Trinity College Dublin, an MSc in International Political Science from Trinity College Dublin, and an MSc in Health Economics from the University of Galway.
Chantelle Kiernan is Department Manager for Innovation and R&D at IDA Ireland, supporting multinational investment in research, development and innovation.
Chantelle has a particular interest in technology-led transformation, working across industry, healthcare, academia and government to strengthen Ireland's position as a leading location for health innovation and growth.
Toma Pervan is an Executive with Irish Medtech, a trade association within Ibec representing the medical technology sector in Ireland. He has extensive experience across the medical device industry, with particular expertise in digital health, regulatory affairs and quality management systems.
In his current role, Toma coordinates a range of quality and regulatory affairs working groups and taskforces. He also leads the organisation and delivery of key industry events, including the Quality and Regulatory Affairs (QARA) Forum and the Digital Health Forum.
Before joining Irish Medtech, Toma worked as a Regulatory Affairs and Market Access Officer with a digital health startup. He also brings a unique perspective to the industry through his background in nursing and his clinical experience across a variety of healthcare settings in Ireland and internationally.
Toma holds a Bachelor's degree in Business from University College Dublin and a Master of Science in Medical Device Regulatory Affairs from South East Technological University.
Rachel was appointed as HIQA’s Director of Health Information and Standards and Director of the National Care Experience Programme in September 2015. She joined HIQA in November 2007 and has held various positions such as the Health Information Manager in Quality and the Head of Healthcare Assurance Programmes in Healthcare Regulation.
She and her team are responsible for setting national standards for health and social care services which are approved by the Minister for Health. This involves developing person-centred standards, based on evidence and international best practice.
She has executive responsibility for the National Care Experience Programme which drives improvements in our health and social care services by understanding service user experience. This programme is a partnership with the Department of Health, the Health Service Executive, and the Mental Health Commission.
Rachel is also responsible for health information, as set out in the Health Act. Her remit is to identify deficiencies in Ireland’s eHealth landscape and develop national recommendations to improve eHealth. She and her team are responsible for setting standards for national data collections and reporting compliance against these standards. She and her team are also contributing to the HealthData@IE project (2023-2027), a national project led by the Department of Health to support the implementation of the European Health Data Space (EHDS) Regulation in Ireland.
Muiris O’Connor is Assistant Secretary in the Department of Health, joining in 2015 to head up the R&D and Health Analytics Division. In this role, Muiris has responsibility for evidence-based approaches to policy and to the promotion of research and innovation in Irish health and social care. His responsibilities also include health information policy, health services reform and All-island, EU and international engagements.
During the pandemic, Muiris focused on the contribution of research and innovation in the fight against COVID and on harnessing the potential of public sector innovation involving HSE, HRB, CSO, OGCIO, OSI and AGS in collaboration with academia and enterprise. Outputs of this work include the CSO Data Hub, the COVID Tracker App, the WHO Solidarity Trials and the delivery of EU Digital COVID Certificates. He is now centrally involved in the implementation of Regional Health Areas and in the work on the Health Information Bill.
Prior to joining the Department of Health, Muiris worked in the Higher Education Authority (HEA), the Department of Education and Skills, the Conference of Religious of Ireland (CORI), the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) and the National University of Ireland, Galway (NUIG). Muiris is a graduate of Philosophy and ‘Soc & Pol’ from the University of Galway and as well as a former employee of the college when he worked as a researcher with Professor Eamon O’Shea at the Department of Economics early in his career.
Neil is currently Prof of Health Informatics (University College Dublin) and Group Chief Information Officer for Children’s Health Ireland.
A Physicist by background having completed his PhD in Medical Physics from DCU in 1991. He was previously Chief Physicist in St. James’s Hospital, but has had a strong emphasis on health informatics throughout his career including heading up many large implementation projects around clinical information systems, acting as advisor to the Department of Health, and project management of a range of medical equipping projects. He led the one of the first EHR projects in Ireland, implementing Cerner into St. James’s in 2006 and initially led the major expansion of this 2018.
In 2007 he took up the role as Programme Lead on the National Integrated Medical Imaging System (NIMIS) Project for the Health Services Executive, Ireland. He currently heads up the Digital Programme for the New Children’s Hospital, including as part of the that the full implementation of a Paediatric Electronic Health Record system. Neil is a member of the HSE’s EHR Steering Group and sits on to the Irish Government’s Open Data Governance Board, as well as a number of other advisory groups. He was previously the CIO for the Ireland East Hospital Group (2018-2020), and Dir of Informatics at St. James’s Hospital (2012 – 2018). Neil was the first medical physicist in Ireland to achieve Chartered Engineer and Charted Physicist status in Health. He was also the first Irish Healthcare CIO to achieve the international Certified Health CIO award from CHIME.
Previously Neil has held academic appointments in Dublin City University and Trinity College Dublin with research interests in health informatics, imaging and UV phototherapy dosimetry. He is the current co-ordinator of the Grad Dip / MSc in Healthcare Informatics (UCD). He was the previous Chair of the Health Informatics Society of Ireland (HISI). In 2019 was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Faculty of Radiology, RCSI and in 2023 was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the annual CIO Awards (Ire).
Elaine has recently joined PwC Ireland’s Healthcare Advisory Team. Prior to this, Elaine was Public Affairs Lead for EIT Health Ireland-UK. EIT Health is an EU-funded health innovation agency and acts as a strategic and implementation tool for the European Commission in terms of forthcoming regulations, supporting Commission mandate priorities locally via its region
al offices.
As part of the Public Affairs team, which works to shape a favourable regulatory environment for research and innovation in health at EU level, Elaine led think tank activities for Ireland and UK. She conducted research and stakeholder engagement on topics such as reimbursement of digital health technologies (2022), EHDS (2021, 2023), blood-based cancer screening (UK, 2025), and the EU Biotech Act (2026). As part of a pan-European steering committee tasked with assessing member state readiness for EHDS implementation, Elaine coordinated a national roundtable and various 1:1 stakeholder interviews to assess EHDS readiness in the Irish context. Recommendations for national and EU policymakers were published in November 2023 and these insights fed into a wider pan-European report in April 2024. She subsequently held roles on national and pan-European steering committees in the area of health data access.
Prior to joining EIT Health, Elaine led the communications department at data start-up Cubic³ for six years. Cubic³ since signed Ireland’s biggest tech deal, reaching a valuation of over €927m. Other previous roles include health policy research at the Delegation of the European Union to the USA, and numerous communications roles held across health, environmental, and international development not-for-profit organizations (incl. Irish Heart Foundation, ActionAid). She began her career in administrative roles at Blackrock Clinic and St. Vincent’s Private Hospital.
Elaine has previously contributed research on the topic of health education in EU member states to Johns Hopkins University and World Bank publications (2013).
Elaine holds an MSc in Corporate Communication and Public Affairs from Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, and a BA in Business and Political Science from Trinity College Dublin.
Ella Kearns is the Strategic Projects Executive at BioPharmaChem Ireland (Ibec). In her current role, Ella leads high-impact initiatives, most recently, the development of "Together, for Others", a strategy for Ireland’s indigenous BioPharmaChem ecosystem to support homegrown innovation and growth.
Before joining Ibec, Ella worked at ICON plc and gained international experience in Sweden as a consultant for Karolinska Institute Innovations and in business development at Sprint Bioscience.
She has a Bachelor’s degree in Biomedical, Health and Life Sciences from University College Dublin and a Master’s in Bioentrepreneurship from the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm.
Donal O'Shea is the founder and CEO of Deciphex, a digital pathology and AI company. A serial entrepreneur with over 20 years in life sciences and technology, he holds a Ph.D. in Computer Vision from Dublin City University and has successfully founded three tech startups with two trade sales.
Under his leadership, Deciphex develops AI-driven pathology tools and services like Diagnexia and Patholytix to streamline diagnostics and accelerate drug development, establishing the company as a leader in digital pathology innovation.
Paul Mearns is a Senior Software Engineering Director at Medtronic, where he is building a new European software centre of excellence in Galway to develop digital health solutions for cardiac and electrophysiology therapies. Paul has been part of Medtronic R&D for over 22 years focusing on innovation, engineering excellence, and creating technologies that improve patient care around the world.
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Seamus has more than 35 years of experience as a consultant, predominantly within the public sector. He currently leads IBM Consulting’s Public Sector Practice in Ireland.
Throughout his career, he has led and contributed to the delivery of a wide range of transformation programmes for organisations including the HSE, the Department of Justice, Uisce Éireann, and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.
Seamus is a strong advocate for the role of digital technology in improving public services and delivering better outcomes for citizens. He believes that the current AI revolution has the potential to significantly transform the delivery of public services. At the same time, he recognises that AI presents important risks that must be carefully understood, managed, and governed to ensure its responsible adoption.
Andrew Davies is a senior leader at Association of British HealthTech Industries (ABHI), where he plays a key role in shaping the organisation’s strategy and engagement with the UK health technology sector.
With a strong focus on innovation, policy, and industry collaboration, Andrew works to support the adoption of health technologies that improve patient outcomes and healthcare system efficiency. His work involves close interaction with government, NHS stakeholders, regulators and industry partners, through advisory and task-and-finish groups, grant award panels and roundtables, helping to position UK HealthTech as a global leader.
Damien McCallion is the HSE’s Chief Technology and Transformation Officer with responsibility for technology, information security, data governance and digital development. Damien is the HSE Director for the Sláintecare Programme, overseeing the HSE’s medium to long term transformation programmes. Damien is also the lead for the HSE’s Organisational Change Unit, overseeing reform and transformation in the HSE, and the HSE’s National Productivity Unit. Damien is also Deputy CEO of the HSE.
Damien was the HSE’s Chief Operations Officer from mid 2022 to June 2024, responsible for oversight of day-to-day health and social care operations in the HSE and over 100,000 staff.
He took on a lead role in the COVID-19 pandemic response as the head of the successful Vaccination and Test &Trace programmes, a key part of the nation’s public health response to the pandemic. He held a variety of roles prior to this within the HSE, from Screening Services, Head of the National Ambulance Service, Head of ICT, National Director for Emergency Management and Special Delivery Unit, and an Area Manager for Health Services in the North West. He has also had a lead role in cross border health programmes, as Chair and Director General of CAWT, and the organisation Safefood as Deputy Chair, for a number of years.
Prior to working in the Health Service he worked for ten years in the airline industry. Damien originally qualified from Letterkenny IT in computing and subsequently completed an MSC in Innovation Management from University of Ulster and Letterkenny IT
Robert Grohmann is Senior Legal Director for Oracle Health & Life Sciences in EMEA, where he leads regulatory strategy across healthcare, artificial intelligence and health data regulation. Before joining Oracle, he spent 10 years in private practice, including at a leading international law firm. His work focuses on helping organisations navigate evolving frameworks, including the EU AI Act and the European Health Data Space, and translating complex regulatory requirements into practical, commercially workable solutions
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