Focus turns to how HSE was left exposed to hacking

Good morning.

News of the HSE hack is almost a week old, and it continues to dominate the attentions of Government, and the political agenda.

Analysing the problems and fixing the damage is largely beyond the influence of politicians, who only know – and sometimes, you feel, barely understand – what they are told by experts and officials.

But if there aren’t very satisfactory answers to the perennial question “what is the Government going to do about this?” beyond “whatever the experts tell us”, there is an increasing focus on just how the HSE was left in a position where it was hit so badly by the hackers . That will only be intensified by Cormac McQuinn’s story on page one this morning.

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Successive annual reports contained warnings from internal audits about vulnerabilities in the HSE systems, he reports, with identical warnings appearing in the 2018 and 2019 reports. So you’d wonder: if they were warned about it by an internal audit in 2018, why did they have to be warned again in 2019? As more appointments are cancelled today, there is likely to be greater focus on these questions.

Our page one story is here. A further report is here. There is little comfort for anyone in Karlin Lillington's analysis, which says the attack was "an accident waiting to happen".

Spiky Dáil exchanges over stamp duty changes

The other story dominating the morning papers is the same as it has been all week: the housing crisis, and the Government’s efforts to tackle it.

Last night, the Dáil voted for the financial resolution that gave effect to the first part of the package of measures agreed by the Government on Tuesday. Stamp duty on bulk purchases of houses increased to 10 per cent at midnight.

There were spiky exchanges in the Dáil during the debate with calls from Opposition TDs to include apartments in the new stamp duty regime to banish investment funds from the market entirely.

Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe said he wouldn’t include apartments precisely because he didn’t want to banish investment funds, which have funded much-needed developments.

Pearse Doherty was having none of it: “This is the hour where you have surrendered this city to the vulture funds, the investment funds. You have hoisted the white flag over this city and say it’s a free for all for vulture funds. Instead of giving the funds the red flag you have given them the green light.”

Marie O'Halloran's report is here.

Meanwhile, Minister for Housing Darragh O'Brien of Fianna Fáil was getting a cosy reception at the Fine Gael parliamentary party meeting, where he briefed them on his plans, including a crackdown on the scourge of AirBnB, though the fact that everyone was expressing surprise at the polite welcome he got tells you something too. Report is here.

Will any of this work? Jack Horgan-Jones ponders in this Q&A.

Johnson apologises to Ballymurphy families in Commons

British prime minister Boris Johnson finally apologised to the families of those shot dead by British soldiers in Ballymurphy, Belfast, 50 years ago.

Johnson read out the names of the 10 victims and said they had been found “entirely innocent” at an inquest last week. He said that on behalf of “successive governments, and to put on the record in this house, I would like to say sorry to their families for how the investigations were handled and for the pain they’ve endured since their campaign began almost five decades ago.

“No apology, Mr Speaker, can lessen their lasting pain,” Mr Johnson said. “I hope they may take some comfort in the answers they have secured and in knowing that this has renewed the government’s determination to ensure in future that other can find answers with less distress and delay.”

But the apology, delivered in the House of Commons, did not satisfy relatives of the dead, several of whom pointed out that he had not apologised for the massacre but rather the way it was subsequently handled.

Our report, from Freya McClements and Denis Staunton, is here.

Elsewhere in Westminster, loyalist representatives were telling a committee hearing of the anger in their community over the Northern Ireland protocol. You know, the one Boris Johnson signed up to.

Best reads

There's lots of coverage of the Dublin Climate Dialogues, none of which is very encouraging. Here's the page one wrap.

Conflict continues in Gaza.

Also in the Dáil.

Meanwhile, Alex Kane says that Edwin Poots could be "an unlikely saviour of the Belfast Agreement". A very unlikely saviour, you'd have thought.

Playbook

Thursdays are quiet enough in the Dáil usually – though Leo Varadkar’s turn taking Leaders’ Questions usually generates a few sparks when he is confronted by Pearse Doherty. That’s at noon.

Oral parliamentary questions to the Ministers for agriculture and higher education, and a few pieces of Government legislation, make up most of the rest of the day. Labour has Private Members’ time.

At the committees, there’s a mixed bag of activities. Public expenditure officials are in at the budget oversight committee, while the sub-committee on mental health will hear from Age Action and Alone.

The left-wing think tank Tasc is in at the Public Accounts Committee to discuss expenditure on housing, while at the media committee, RTÉ, Virgin, TG4 and Sky are in to discuss the online safety and media regulation Bill.

"Representatives from political parties", meanwhile, are in to discuss the electoral reform Bill at the housing and local government committee. Full Oireachtas schedule is here.

Elsewhere, the French are in town – Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and Minister for European Affairs Clément Beaune will meet Simon Coveney and European Affairs Minister Thomas Byrne at Farmleigh. Well, it’s nice there at this time of year.