Nonetheless, the powers are necessary. Notwithstanding Deputy Mattie McGrath and a few others, most of us in this Chamber understand why we need public health measures, why they have been important in terms of saving lives and why they need a statutory basis to be brought in. Deputy Harkin and others mentioned that what we should be doing in this legislation is unwinding the measures and the powers. That is exactly what we are doing. The Bill does not seek to make any changes in terms of having more comprehensive r…

I thank the Ceann Comhairle. It is not a point of order. If that is incorrect, and if there were such a motion tabled to annul a specific regulation-----

-----I am more than happy to accept that with no problem whatsoever. However, I would point out that we all listened to the diatribe, quite frankly, from Deputy Mattie McGrath but we listened nonetheless. We did not keep jumping up like a jack-in-the-box and interrupting him. We do afford each other the space to make our points. Deputy Mattie McGrath might consider the same. We have addressed the issue of Oireachtas oversight and transparency. We have addressed the issue of dates and why 9 November has been suggest…

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

I welcome the opportunity to present the Health and Criminal Justice (Covid-19) (Amendment) Bill 2021 to the House. The purpose of this Bill is to extend the period of application of certain emergency provisions that have been key to providing for the Government's public health response to the pandemic. The emergency provisions that are to be extended are in the Health (Preservation and Protection and other Emergency Measures in the Public Interest) Act 2020, the Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (Covid-19)…

In an effort to be helpful, the Acting Chairman can tell the Deputy that what I have been doing for the past few hours is taking pages and pages of notes from all contributions. While Deputy Connolly was speaking I was trying to-----

-----take notes of what she said. That is what I have been doing for the past several hours.

The Deputy is welcome to take a look at them. With respect-----

I thank colleagues for their contributions, both at yesterday's session and today. Essentially the debate we are having now deals with nearly all the amendments. There are amendments at the end dealing with reporting, but essentially there are groups of amendments proposing the same thing with the four different Acts we are seeking to extend. I had nothing to do with ordering the business and the allocation of debating time in the Seanad. I would be more than happy to come back to the Seanad to discuss the public h…

That is up to the Leas-Chathaoirleach.

With regard to keeping Parliament informed, I respectfully disagree with the Senator. There has been a lot of debate. Perhaps there should have been more in the Seanad. As I said, I am open to such debates, although the Seanad orders its own business. I have sat in this room week after week for sessions of questions and answers. There has been a lot of parliamentary debate. With regard to the right to access the information that informs these decisions, I wholeheartedly agree. Great efforts have been made to that e…

I welcome the opportunity to present the Health and Criminal Justice (Covid-19) (Amendment) Bill 2021 to the House. The purpose of the Bill is to extend the period of application of certain emergency provisions that have been critical to the Government's response to the pandemic. The emergency provisions that are to be extended are in the Health (Preservation and Protection and other Emergency Measures in the Public Interest) Act 2020, the Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (Covid-19) Act 2020, the Criminal …

I thank the Acting Chairperson for that. I thank colleagues very sincerely for their contributions, ideas and challenges which are essential. It is fair to say that none of us want this Bill. This is a deeply unwelcome Bill. I remember sitting almost exactly where Senator McDowell is right now, when I was debating this Bill with the then Minister for Health, Deputy Harris, and I described the powers as draconian. I still think they are draconian. I think this Bill is draconian. There is no question about it. Legisl…

I apologise for going over time. I want to share my colleagues’ support for the vaccine programme. The credit for the vaccine programme goes to the thousands and thousands of women and men all over our country, in every one of our counties and every constituency, who have gone in, seven days a week, and worked very long shifts. In record time, they have put together a national vaccination programme, built an entire IT infrastructure and dealt with some very difficult logistics in terms of the temperatures these thi…

I thank the Acting Chairman for the opportunity to update the House on the impact of the cyberattack on our health services. Last week, the State was subject to a sophisticated ransomware attack. Information communication technology, ICT, infrastructure at the Department of Health and the HSE, including national and local IT systems, were the subject of a serious and malicious cybersecurity incident in the early hours of last Friday. The systems in my Department and the HSE were shut down immediately with the objec…

The HSE and the Department have their own in-house ICT teams. The HSE has partners and there is back-up from the NCSC. For example, on Thursday, when the Department of Health spotted suspicious activity, the Department's IT team contacted the centre and took advice from the centre on how to respond.

Apologies, I did not answer the Deputy's other question on IT spent. I will do so quickly. The HSE spend in 2019 was €130 million; last year, it was €145 million. We have allocated a significant increase this year to €203 million. I am sure he will welcome the fact that in this year's national service plan, I allocated funding to almost double the ICT staff. From a base staff of 400, an increase of 358 has been added. On the question concerning sensitive patient information, the latest briefing I got alluded to fil…

The answer is both. It will take time for the security experts to give us a full view across the systems as to exactly what information is available. Is it possible that sensitive information has been successfully downloaded? Unfortunately, it is.

No. There are 80,000 such devices and a full audit is going on at the moment. If the HSE has that information already, which it may, I will seek to have it provided to the Deputy.

It may well, and I will ask for that information to be provided for the Deputy.