Child care cases delayed by HSE cyber attack

Family lawyers told The Times that a number of cases have been adjourned due to difficulties receiving reports from social workers.

Gareth Noble, partner at KOD Lyons, said: “I’ve seen a number of adjournments already on the basis that the information on reports and assessment isn’t available and so court cases are being adjourned.

“There’s virtually no case that isn’t affected by the lack of reports. If this were to continue and drags on, we will have to drag social workers into court, away from their day-to-day work.”

The High Court last week granted an injunction restraining any sharing, processing, selling or publishing of any data stolen from the HSE’s computer systems in the cyber attack.

A criminal gang based in Russia is believed by authorities to be responsible for the attack, the most serious cyber attack on State infrastructure to date and likely the most serious on a health service anywhere in the world.

The ransomware attack saw HSE data frozen pending the payment of a ransom, which the government has refused to pay and is working to recover by other means. There are now fears that data may have also been stolen and could be traded online.