Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will speak to it if that is okay. This proposed amendment provides that the Bill is brought into operation no more than 30 days after it is enacted. My firm intention is that this legislation amendment is enacted and commenced as quickly as possible. A number of matters need to be considered carefully before this can happen, however. The changes to the scheme are complex and significant work needs to happen at operational level to ensure that the system works smoothly from day one of these changes coming into effect.

The recent cyberattack has had a significant effect on the HSE's capacity. The attack impacted both the national nursing home support scheme office and the 15 national nursing home support offices. I commend the excellent work of the nursing home support scheme's team and staff. The HSE managed to put a manual processing system in place, ensuring that the attack did not affect funding releases to clients and patients and payments to private nursing homes.

A significant body of work is currently required to bring all systems up to date, however, while continuing to ensure there is no delay to dealing with the new applications or their processing. The nursing home support scheme IT system is currently being rebuilt on new servers. Once this is completed, significant testing will be required before the system is transferred to a live environment. The testing is crucial when considering that the nursing home support scheme controls and processes €1 billion in public money annually.

We are not, therefore, in a position to fully commence the provision within the 30 days proposed. I want to work with the Deputies who have brought forward this amendment, however. I accept it is important to provide clarity on this matter and ensure that people can benefit from these new arrangements as soon as possible. While I cannot, therefore, accept the amendment as drafted, which proposes a period of 30 days, I will bring an additional amendment to the Bill on Report Stage committing to commencement of the Bill within 90 days.

That would make the date of commencement the start of October. My intention was always to try and commence the legislation in September but as a result of the cyberattack, that has proved very difficult. Perhaps Deputy Shanahan and his colleagues will come with me on this. I am not opposing the amendment, but I will bring forward another amendment on Report Stage to state that we will impose a timeline in respect of the legislation and that it will be enacted within 90 days to give the nursing home support scheme and the HSE the time to put the measures in place. I hope the Deputy can accept that.