The HSE failed in its responsibility to protect us from criminal hackers
THE morals of those who would attack us are completely abhorrent; targeting the sick and delaying their treatment is the absolute lowest of the low. The failings of the HSE in no way take away from the responsibility borne by the anonymous, cowardly cyberattackers who have sabotaged healthcare provision.
That said, even the most naïve IT user would be aware of such threats. The HSE failed to heed numerous warnings, as evidenced today, and didn’t place importance on hiring a chief risk officer, or CRO, despite repeated calls to do so.
One of those calls was made in the wake of the CervicalCheck scandal, one of the darkest moments in the history of the HSE since it replaced the regional health boards and became a bloated bureaucracy instead of a patient-focused service. That alone is a reminder that the admirable performance of the HSE during the pandemic was more about the frontline workers at the coalface who, as always, deserve the most credit.
Repeated failures of basic management come up time and time again, from the rotation of beds in the usual winter flu crises that always lead to older people spending nights on trolleys in corridors, to long waiting lists for assessments, never mind surgeries. We are, with the vaccination programme and new variants notwithstanding, heading towards the endgame of this desperate time in the history of our country. These legacy issues and shortcomings need to be addressed with the same determination that was applied to treating the Covid-19 challenge.
The hackers are responsible for the attack but the security of health data is the responsibility of the HSE.
Every major company and public body has a chief risk officer. Our reporting today shows that the HSE simply did not live up to its responsibility.
NO EXCUSE FOR IGNORING HOUSING
THIS paper has repeatedly warned the Government that at the end of the pandemic it would face the same scrutiny on housing that it did during the election campaign in 2020. We are only just over a year past that telling ballot and still more than a month shy of the anniversary of the formation of the current coalition. When questioned in January last year, 35% of respondents told an Ireland Thinks/Irish Mail On Sunday poll that housing was the number one issue.
The arrival of the pandemic changed all that but it was a blip, and our leaders should take no electoral comfort from thinking they did a good job of handling the health crisis.
In our latest poll, housing is again the key issue for 34% of the electorate, fuelled by the scandal of so-called cuckoo funds buying new homes from under the feet of first-time buyers and second-timers who, with young families, have outgrown apartment life.
It would be foolish of them to take comfort from the fact this issue does not affect their core voters, because parents want to see their adult children able to buy affordable homes of their own.
This is a multi-generational issue, not a niche one, and the electorate will not forgive any failure to tackle this. Blaming the pandemic will not be an acceptable excuse.