Brian Leddin (Limerick City, Green Party)
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450. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if her attention has been drawn to difficulties in the registration of births in the civil registration service due to the handwriting of birth notifications from some maternity hospitals following the cyber-attack on the HSE; the steps she is taking to facilitate the registration of births while manual systems are being operated in maternity hospitals; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [37494/21]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy will be aware that the processes for the notification of births is the responsibility of the maternity services and the HSE registration services.  My Department has no direct role with respect to such matters.

I am aware of the delays being suffered by the public as the HSE deals with the backlog of births and deaths registrations caused by the cyber-attack on HSE systems.  Some four weeks of registration activity was lost.  The HSE has advised my Department that contingency arrangements are in place for the Dublin based maternity services where electronic birth notifications cannot be sent.   The HSE has further advised that electronic notification of births from the Coombe and Rotunda maternity hospitals has been restored with some transfer of data for late May and early June still necessary.  The systems in place for the National Maternity Hospital are not yet restored and staff are providing handwritten or manual notifications to the Eastern Region civil registration office.  The HSE is unable to say when its IT systems will be fully restored.

I understand that the hospital and registration staff are working to resolve any matters that arises on a case by case basis.  In cases where a birth certificate contains clerical errors, the parent(s) can seek to have these corrected by applying to the superintendent registrar at a civil registration office of their choosing. 

I hope this clarifies the matter.