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Seanad
‹ An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business

Order of Business

Summary

Senator Kyne set out the day’s business, and Senator Byrne immediately raised section 39 organisations, calling for a debate on pay and support.

The Order of Business is No. 1, motion regarding the Orders of Reference of the Joint Committee on Key Issues affecting the Traveller Community, to be taken without debate on the conclusion of the Order of Business; No. 2, Civil Defence Bill 2023 - Second Stage, to be taken at 11.45 a.m. and to adjourn not later than 1.15 p.m., if not previously concluded, with the time allocated for the opening remarks of the Minister not to exceed ten minutes, for group spokespersons not to exceed eight minutes, and for all other Senators not to exceed five minutes, and the Minister to be given not less than ten minutes to reply to the debate; and No. 3, statements on tourism, to be taken at 1.15 p.m. with the time allocated to the opening remarks of the Minister not to exceed six minutes, for all Senators not to exceed six minutes, and the Minister to be given not less than six minutes to reply to the debate.

Comment on this

I raise an issue I have raised here before, namely, concern around section 39 organisations. As we know, a lot of health services, in particular disability services and services for older people, are provided by section 39 organisations. There is a difference between section 38 and 39 organisations in terms of pay levels. Somebody who is a nurse is financially better off working in the HSE system than in a section 39 organisation. This is an issue the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, has raised regularly. I ask that a debate on section 39 organisations and the support for them be facilitated in the House.

Related to that, I had a Commencement matter last week on the cost of the cyberattack on the HSE. By the end of this year, we know the direct costs will run to the order of €144 million. I fully expect that will exceed €200 million or €300 million by the time all of the necessary repair works are carried out. One of the major problems we have is that, because a lot of health services are provided by section 39 organisations, the vulnerability with regard to a cyberattack will not be on the HSE but rather some section 39 organisations. Many of these organisations carry important patient data. As part of our debate on cybersecurity in the health services, we need to know how we will protect the data in section 39 organisations. The difficulty is that when those organisations spend money on cybersecurity, it is classified as admin and fingers are pointed about charities spending a lot of money on admin, but it is essential they spend that money. We need to look at this issue.

On the data issue, it is anticipated that, in the next few days, we will hear a decision concerning the long-running case taken by Max Schrems, the Austrian lawyer and privacy campaigner. I applaud him for his work on data transfer by Meta from the European Union to the United States. We expect to see the largest ever fine for a data breach slapped on Meta, but there is also the possibility of a data transfer ban on data from Meta travelling to the United States. That would have serious implications for those who use Facebook and other social media. I have called for a debate on foot of that decision around data security in Ireland and Europe.

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