Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 18 December 2025
678. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether her Department has received any reports identifying risks or limitations in HSE public health IT systems during periods of elevated demand since 2020; and to outline the actions taken in response to any such reports. [73505/25]
View answerAll public health IT systems came under tremendous pressure caused by elevated demand triggered by the pandemic, as the volume of track and trace activities and the volume of notifications to the National Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) ramped up exponentially overnight. The subsequent need to manage a national campaign for everyone to receive a Covid vaccine in a very specific order, in particular locations, in mass vaccination clinics, hospitals, GP surgeries and community pharmacy, and within a shortest time possible, also put the health system and associated IT systems under pressure.
The HSE took steps to address this at the time and continues to invest in these systems for the future. At the time a new CRM solution was developed to provide a state of the art Track and Trace System. The legacy system used by HPSC could not be replaced to tactical actions were taken to respond to the emergency including additional ICT infrastructure and the use of BOTs to automate large volume data processing. A new Covid vaccination system was developed at pace and scale and with sufficient resilience to withstand the ransomware attack in May 2021, which affected many other HSE systems but meant the national vaccination campaign was largely unaffected.
Since that time a national Delivery Director has been in place with her team to accelerate delivery of IT systems in public health. The HPSC system is being replaced and the vaccination system is being developed so that it can cater for all programmes, not just Covid.
Whilst there is still much to be done, the team have a plan, funding and resources are being provided and they are getting on with delivery.
