merrion street

The Minister for Environment, Climate and Communications, Eamon Ryan, the Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly, the Minister for Justice, Heather Humphreys and the Minister of State for Communications and eGovernment, Ossian Smyth, met again today to review progress with the response to last week’s cyber-attack on the HSE and to co-ordinate ongoing actions across Government.

The Ministers have been meeting daily to monitor and steer the Government’s response and will continue to do so for as long as necessary.

The Ministers were updated on the good progress made with the restoration of HSE and hospital IT systems which is essential to the restoration of care for patients and to support the personnel in the front line who are delivering care. The Ministers expressed their particular appreciation for the exceptional efforts of frontline health care workers in the difficult circumstances caused by the cyber-attack.

The National Cyber Security Centre, the HSE and specialist contractors are continuing to implement a detailed and dedicated operational programme to repair and restore the HSE’s IT systems and network, and are making very steady progress in what is a difficult and complex task.

Note for editors:

The Minister for Environment, Climate and Communications, Eamon Ryan, the Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly, the Minister for Justice, Heather Humphreys and the Minister of State for Communications and eGovernment, Ossian Smyth, as the Government Ministers most directly concerned with the Departments and services responding to the cyber-attack, have been meeting daily this week to steer the cross-Government responses to the ransomware cyber-attack carried out on the HSE. This is in keeping with the Critical National Incident Response Plan of the NCSC. Information is made available on an ongoing basis by the relevant Government Departments, the NCSC, the HSE and the Garda Síochána. The Ministers are supported also by personnel from the Department of the Taoiseach.

The HSE is issuing regular updates on the availability of services at www.hse.ie