The priorities for Ireland’s presidency of the Council of the EU have been wide in scope across various sections of society, different sectors within the economy, along with competing national or common interests.
Some of those will resolve in due course under the current term, while many will either stall or progress as it passes onto Lithuania and then Greece through 2027.
One long-standing objective and policy priority that falls directly during our watch is the provision for an EU Digital Identity Wallet for all citizens and businesses by December of this year.
This is part of the wider Digital Decade Policy Programme (DDPP), which is the EU’s framework for achieving digital transformation by the end of the decade.
It includes targets in relation to digital skills, digital infrastructure, the digitalisation of businesses, and access to digital public services.
That last (but not least) area essentially involves all key public services being available online with citizens’ digital identity and ability to access services working seamlessly throughout the EU.
The practical applications are complex but the “only once” principle applies throughout, where citizens should not be repeatedly asked by governments or multiple agencies for information already available.
With progress being made on all fronts to various degrees, this is now a defining period for Ireland to help push the digital public services agenda forward for citizens, businesses and State services. Interoperable data should flow freely enough to support everything from mortgage approvals to healthcare records and planning applications.
The main challenge is one that often falls on European or cross-border projects. It comes down to collective co-ordination and consensus. Twenty-seven member states, with as many starting points, governance structures, all building toward the same targets along separate paths that sometimes fail to intersect.
The issues to be resolved don’t solely lie within policy, legal or technological constraints. It is often social where the connectivity falls down. How do people, who each hold a piece of a public problem, find one another, build trust, and produce outcomes that outlast a ministerial photocall or presidential term? The EU and the Irish Government have invested heavily in the building blocks that are needed for this journey. The digital identity wallets, data spaces and cloud platforms already exist.
What is missing is the right people coming together from different corners, knowing how to assemble these blocks in the right way.
Practitioners who have the ability and mindset to move between a Brussels regulation and a rural county council’s operating reality, without treating the two as separate jobs.
Ireland’s role in this during its EU presidency is reflected in a new initiative that will gather the necessary stakeholders to generate those collective solutions for the next phase of Europe’s digital public services roadmap.
To break the roadblocks and unlock the capabilities that can advance these future services, we need to first go back though to an age-old practice. Before internet technology, quantum computing or artificial intelligence were even imagined, Ireland had meitheal.
This was among our oldest social networks and was based on reciprocity, trust and shared responsibilities. Its approach was replicated in similiar forms in different countries: Norway’s dugnad, Finland’s talkoot, Lithuania’s talka, Hungary’s kaláka and the Balkan moba.
Each European tradition reflects the same civic principle that complex problems can be solved when communities pool effort, skills and responsibility. It activated to do work that no single person or household could manage alone.
The main rule being that help given would be returned. This created a social infrastructure and self-enforcing system for dedicating skills exactly when and where they were needed. That practice and principle may be what is needed now to push forward on Ireland and Europe’s digital public services programme.
On November 19th and 20th, Ireland will hold the first Meitheal Digiteach that will bring policy makers, community groups, data designers, delivery practitioners, architects and engineers into the same room to work through the shared challenges, while looking to create practical solutions and connect the diverging tracks on the new Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) rails.
The gathering will not work like a regular conference with the usual panel discussions, keynote addresses and firesides or roundtables. This will be a hands-on exercise for participants with no hierarchy and no spectators.
It is due to be held at a fitting location within the Drogheda Civic Offices which, since its relatively recent refurbishment, now represents a suitable blend of heritage with modern design and functionality. The call is for like-minded citizens and groups to get involved in building the next level of digital public services.
I’d encourage all who have a role to play to join us, as Ireland’s meitheal provides a mechanism that can be passed on to the next custodians of the EU presidency and the subsequent phases of our shared digital public services programme.
Gar Mac Críosta is digital advisor strategy & architecture at the HSE, and co-founder of Meitheal Digiteach 2026