Transform Gov - the digital government podcast

How do you redesign a public service used by people from almost every country in the world? In this episode of Transform Gov, Maeve Kneafsey speaks with Paul Rooney and Roshan Wijesinghe from the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration about the Department’s digital contact centre for immigration services. This is a story about far more than technology. The Department was dealing with hi...

What if your next hospital appointment happened from your kitchen table? In Part 2 of Transform Gov, Professor Derek O'Keeffe explains how Ireland is using digital technology to rethink healthcare delivery — from remote islands to nursing homes, prisons and beyond. You'll hear how: *Patients can be monitored safely at home. *Chronic diseases can be managed before emergencies happen. *Virtual hospi...

What if the biggest challenge in healthcare wasn't medicine... ...but getting the right people to work together? In Part 1 of this fascinating conversation, Professor Derek O'Keeffe — consultant endocrinologist, engineer and founder of the Hive Lab at the University of Galway — explains why solving healthcare problems often starts outside the hospital. From delivering medicines by drone after Stor...

Justin Gleeson explains how a small team from government, Maynooth University and Ordnance Survey Ireland came together in March 2020 to create the platform that millions of us watched every evening behind Tony Holohan. A fascinating story about what can happen when technology, data and public service all pull in the same direction. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What happens when local heritage meets digital innovation? In this episode of Transform Gov, Maeve Kneafsey speaks with Marie Mannion, Heritage Officer, and Brídín Feeney from the GIS team at Galway County Council. Winners of the 2025 Ireland eGovernment Open Data Award , their StoryMaps project is transforming how communities discover, preserve and share local heritage. From digitising more than...

Fear of saying the wrong thing. Fear of making things worse. Fear of even starting the conversation. In this episode of Transform Gov, Maeve Kneafsey speaks with Ailish O’Neill from the HSE’s National Suicide Prevention Office about “Let’s Talk About Suicide” — the winner of the 2025 Ireland eGovernment Education Award. This is a digital learning programme designed to help ordinary people recognis...

What actually happens when a country decides to digitise itself? Not the theory. Not the strategy decks. The real story. Over 23 years, Ireland’s public sector has gone from: • Paper forms, post and phone calls • To online transactions people trust • To fully integrated, citizen-first services • And now… cautiously stepping into AI This episode is a rare step back — a straight, honest look at what...

Two years and nine months. That’s how long people were waiting in the system — until everything had to change. What happens when a public service built for 3,000 applications a year suddenly faces over 18,000? That was the reality facing Ireland’s International Protection Office — a system under intense pressure, with growing backlogs, long delays, and real human consequences. In this episode of T...

An insider's guide to a brilliant entry for the Ireland eGovernment Awards Most teams think awards are about technology, scale, or budget. They’re not. On this episode of Transform Gov, we sit down with Declan Tuite, Head Judge of the Ireland eGovernment Awards, and Maeve Kneafsey, to break down what really separates winning entries from the rest. Why strong projects fall short. What judges are ac...

In Part 2 of this Transform Gov conversation, Marie Wallace (Accenture) moves beyond the concept of digital identity — and explains what it actually means in practice for service delivery, cost, and efficiency. The headline figure? Up to €8 billion in economic impact for Ireland. But the real story is where that value comes from: removing manual verification from services eliminating repeated onbo...

Digital identity is often talked about — but rarely understood in practical terms. In this episode of Transform Gov, Maeve Kneafsey speaks with Marie Wallace, Managing Director and Global Lead for Digital Identities at Accenture, about what is broken in how we prove who we are today — and what is changing. From repeatedly filling out forms to sharing far more personal data than necessary, Marie ex...

In this episode of Transform Gov, Maeve Kneafsey sits down with Malcolm Byrne TD, Chair of the Oireachtas Committee on Artificial Intelligence, to unpack what has actually changed — and why the pace of change is now the real issue. From courts using AI for real-time translation… to Revenue analysing thousands of tax codes… to the uncomfortable truth that other countries are already moving faster —...

COVID changed how people engage with online services — permanently. The organisations that adapted are now seeing better engagement, better access, better outcomes . The rest are still catching up. In this episode of Transform Gov, Maeve Kneafsey speaks with Aoife Prendergast of Technological University of the Shannon (TUS) , whose team won the Universal Design category at the Ireland eGovernment...

This is not a tech story. This is a human story. Before this system existed, vulnerable children could wait weeks for access to childcare — stuck in a maze of emails, forms, and approvals. Now? Minutes. On this episode of Transform Gov, Maeve Kneafsey speaks with Ruth Shortall (POBAL) and Ciarán Madden (Department of Children) about the system that: Cut waiting times from 3 weeks to minutes Connec...

What if a city already knew your child was starting school — and simply sent you a text asking if you agreed with the proposed school? That already happens in Helsinki. In this episode of Transform Gov, infrastructure expert Alice Charles from Arup explains how some cities are using data, digital twins and AI to plan transport, housing and infrastructure far more intelligently. You will hear: How...

AI may dominate the headlines — but the real race is happening somewhere else. Energy. Water. Data infrastructure. On this episode of Transform Gov , Maeve Kneafsey speaks with Alice Charles, Director at Arup and former World Economic Forum infrastructure lead , about the global competition shaping the future of cities, economies and governments. Alice explains why the AI boom is triggering what s...

What does AI actually look like inside a local authority? In this episode of Transform Gov, Dublin City Council’s AI Lab team — Khizer Ahmed Biyabani and Richie Shakespeare — explain how they are moving beyond AI hype to deliver practical tools that improve consistency, save time and build trust. From preventing contradictory council answers to searching decades of records in seconds, they share w...

Quantum computing is often described as “next-generation” technology — but according to Equal1 CEO Jason Lynch, it’s much closer, more practical, and more relevant to government than most people realise. In this episode of Transform Gov, Jason explains quantum computing in plain English, why it follows AI rather than replaces it, and how it could transform public services — from climate modelling...

What if improving health didn’t start with another campaign telling people what to do? In this episode of Transform Gov, Maeve Kneafsey speaks with Stephen McPeake , founder of Civic Dollars , about a practical, community-led way councils and health bodies are encouraging healthier behaviour — and actually seeing results. Stephen explains why incentives often work better than awareness campaigns,...

AI can already create near-perfect replicas of passports, utility bills and other identity documents — good enough to bypass many existing checks. In this episode of Transform Gov , Maeve Kneafsey speaks with Dr Hitesh Tewari , Professor at Trinity College Dublin and researcher at the ADAPT Centre, about what this means for public services that rely on digital identity, from welfare and healthcare...

Digital services only work if everyone can use them. In this episode of Transform Gov, Maeve Kneafsey speaks with Donal Fitzpatrick and Shivaali Scully from the National Disability Authority about accessibility, universal design and the fast-emerging role of AI in public services. They explore if AI can remove barriers for people with disabilities, where serious risks around bias and privacy remai...

This is a frank conversation about pace, legislation, risk culture, and delivery at scale — and why digital reform will stall unless governments change how decisions are made, not just what they build. Part 2 of Transform Gov , Dr Tony Shannon, Head of Digital Services at Ireland’s Office of the Government CIO. This interview goes beyond strategy and confronts the real constraints holding back pub...

Dr Tony Shannon, Head of Digital Services in Ireland’s Office of the Government CIO, shares his remarkable journey from emergency medicine to the front line of digital government. He shares why healthcare’s chaos taught him how to fix complex systems, how the NHS’s multi-billion-pound IT failure shaped his thinking, and why now —in his words—“is a moment that matters and a decade that matters.” Ex...

How do great ideas in healthcare move from pilot projects to everyday practice? In this episode of Transform Gov , Maeve Kneafsey talks with Louise (Lou) O’Hare , Assistant National Director at the Sláintecare Transformation and Innovation Office , about how the Sláintecare Integration Innovation Fund (SIF) is creating a clear pathway for innovation across Ireland’s health system. Lou shares how t...

In this episode, Maeve Kneafsey talks with Paula Lyons , Ass. Secretary and Head of Service Development at the Department of Social Protection , about how her team is redesigning services around life events like having a child, retirement, or bereavement. They discuss: Why DSP’s philosophy is “digital by desire” , not by force How citizen trust and data sharing are unlocking connected services The...