Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I raise an issue I have raised here before, namely, concern around section 39 organisations. As we know, a lot of health services, in particular disability services and services for older people, are provided by section 39 organisations. There is a difference between section 38 and 39 organisations in terms of pay levels. Somebody who is a nurse is financially better off working in the HSE system than in a section 39 organisation. This is an issue the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, has raised regularly. I ask that a debate on section 39 organisations and the support for them be facilitated in the House.

Related to that, I had a Commencement matter last week of the cost of the cyberattack on the HSE. By the end of this year, we know the direct costs will run to the order of €144 million. I fully expect that will exceed €200 or €300 million by the time all of the necessary repair works are carried out. One of the major problems we have is that, because a lot of health services are provided by section 39 organisations, the vulnerability with regard to a cyberattack will not be on the HSE but rather some section 39 organisations. Many of these organisations carry important patient data. As part of our debate on cybersecurity in the health services, we need to know how we will protect the data in section 39 organisations. The difficulty is that when those organisations spend money on cybersecurity, it is classified as admin and fingers are pointed about charities spending a lot of money on admin, but it is essential they spend that money. We need to look at this issue.

On the data issue, it is anticipated that, in the next few days, we will hear a decision concerning the long-running case taken by Max Schrems, the Austrian lawyer and privacy campaigner. I applaud him for his work on data transfer by Meta from the European Union to the United States. We expect to see the largest ever fine for a data breach slapped on Meta, but there is also the possibility of a data transfer ban on data from Meta travelling to the United States. That would have serious implications for those who use Facebook and other social media. I have called for a debate on foot of that decision around data security in Ireland and Europe.