Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Acting Chairman for the opportunity to update the House on the impact of the cyberattack on our health services. Last week, the State was subject to a sophisticated ransomware attack. Information communication technology, ICT, infrastructure at the Department of Health and the HSE, including national and local IT systems, were the subject of a serious and malicious cybersecurity incident in the early hours of last Friday. The systems in my Department and the HSE were shut down immediately with the objective of containing the attack. Since that time, both organisations have been working to analyse the extent of the attacks, which includes working closely with the National Cyber Security Centre and State agencies, including An Garda Síochána and the Defence Forces, in order to resolve the situation in a planned and structured manner.

This is having a profound effect on patients across the country. Like many in the House, I have listened to some of the testimony from those directly affected. Jill Byrne, mother of Cian, who has Down's syndrome, outlined on RTÉ earlier today the many appointments scheduled for Cian this week, all of which have now been cancelled. Like Cian, for many patients and families these appointments have been long awaited. Others have had treatment for serious illnesses postponed. Donna-Marie Cullen described how she was due to complete her radiation treatment for cancer at the end of May and now faces delays to that course of treatment. We can only imagine the anxiety this is causing her, others in the same position and their families at this time.

The HSE and the Department are prioritising the restoration of services with teams working around the clock to resolve the situation through a planned, structured response, under the direction of a HSE national co-ordination centre. This involves the assessment and recovery of approximately 2,000 IT patient-facing systems, each supported by infrastructure, multiple servers and devices. In addition, there are approximately 80,000 HSE devices which need to be checked. This is being carried out in a methodical process of cleaning, restoring and bringing back online while managing the risk of reinfection.

The HSE is prioritising those patients most in need of urgent care. In particular, every effort is being made to maintain cancer services, with a particular focus on urgent and time-sensitive cases. Unfortunately, radiotherapy services are particularly impacted. Medical oncology is continuing, with some delay due to manual recording in administrative processes. Plans are being developed to relocate some of these services to private hospitals on a temporary basis.

Patients and clinical teams at acute hospitals are experiencing increased turnaround time for laboratory tests and difficulty in accessing patient information history, which is a matter of concern. A significant number of outpatient appointments have been cancelled. Most community health services such as disability, mental health, primary care and older people services are operating as normal. However, I am advised that some delays and cancellations can be expected. This is especially the case in dental, orthodontics, ophthalmology and audiology services. Any appointments that cannot go ahead will be rescheduled as soon as possible.

Emergency departments are open and operating. However, patient flow is impacted in all areas due to reduced laboratory and radiology capacity and, of course, reduced access to patient records. If a patient is acutely unwell or seriously injured, they should attend an emergency department. We also have injury units and GP out-of-hours for people to access.

The HSE continues to provide updates on the provision of its services, including hospital appointments, emergencies, community health services, radiation therapy, screening services, sexual assault treatment units, counselling services and, of course, Covid-19 vaccine and testing updates at hse.ie. This is where patients can access the most up-to-date information as it is changing all the time.

Access to ICT continues to be severely restricted. This means officials of both the HSE and the Department of Health do not have access to email and the other information systems required to carry out day-to-day work. As a consequence, it is not currently possible for my Department to meet all its Oireachtas obligations. I thank all colleagues for their understanding in respect of the challenges we face in meeting our Oireachtas obligations, including parliamentary questions.

The criminals behind this assault are utterly contemptible, but Ireland is not alone in facing cyberattacks. These criminals deliberately target critical infrastructure. Unfortunately, healthcare is a real target of cybercrime at the moment, due to the high value of health data and the criticality of health services. As the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity has pointed out, malicious criminals have introduced more advanced phishing campaigns and ransomware attacks since the onset of the pandemic. We will overcome the effects of this assault on our public health system and I reassure colleagues we are doing all we can to ensure we resume services as quickly and safely as possible.

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