Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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3010. To ask the Minister for Health the extent to which actions are in hand to minimise the recent cyber-attack on the most sensitive of services provided by the HSE including oncology, cardiovascular, endoscopy, paediatric, neurology and emergency mental health services; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39962/21]

Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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As this Parliamentary Question relates to an operational issue, it is a matter for the HSE. However, members of the Oireachtas are advised that the HSE is currently unable to access the information to answer Parliamentary Questions due to the recent cyber-attack, which has required a temporary shut-down of HSE IT systems. The disruption to service is on-going, and the HSE is working hard to restore its IT capacity and resume normal services. Members of the Oireachtas will be advised as soon as the HSE is again in a position to provide responses to PQs and are encouraged to resubmit their Parliamentary Questions at that point.

The cyber-attack in May severely disabled a number of systems and necessitated the complete shutdown of the HSE’s network. Work has been progressing ever since to recover systems (decryption and eradication of malware) with the focus on restoring the systems most critical to patient care in the first instance, enabling end-user devices and restoring interoperability between systems and sites to effect service delivery.  Over the last weeks many of these systems have been recovered and services have recommenced. At present, while there are still a number of areas of ongoing concern, most systems are operational and services are returning to normal activity. The HSE is now working to catch up on patients / service users that were delayed, with priority being given to time-sensitive and urgent cases. However, the combined impact of the cyber-attack and the COVID surge of January/February 2021 has had the effect of increasing access delays for some services and the HSE is responding with contingency measures as far as possible to minimise the impact for patients.