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Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland

Quinn family call for public inquiry in wake of Liberty Insurance job losses

The family say a public inquiry into the Administration of Quinn Insurance is now more necessary “than ever”.

THE QUINN FAMILY has said this evening that the 285 job losses announced at Liberty Insurance was “a terrible indictment on the deal agreed by Anglo Irish Bank and the Joint Administrators of Quinn Insurance in April 2011″.

Liberty Insurance, which took over Quinn Insurance, said that he redundancies had been deemed necessary following a review of the market entry moves and its cost base.

In a statement, the family said that in October 2010 – six-and-a-half months after the administrators were appointed to Quinn Insurance – the Irish public were assured the Irish public that ‘there would be no call on the Insurance Compensation Fund’.

However, the Quinns said, the figure now stands at €1.65 billion.

They continued:

In April 2011, the Administrators assured both the staff of Quinn Insurance and the Irish Public that “all the jobs are preserved in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
In August 2012, the Irish Government stated that it had ‘been misled by incomplete information’ from the Administrators. The Quinn family has continuously maintained that the deal agreed between Anglo Irish Bank and the Administrators will have the worst possible outcome for the State.

The family said they had “repeatedly” called for a public inquiry into the Administration of Quinn Insurance and have openly confirmed their willingness to participate in same.

“More recently we have been denied an audience before the Oireachtas Finance Committee to voice our concerns in relation to these and related matters,” they said. “Following today’s developments we feel more than ever that a public inquiry is required.”

Read: GALLERY: At least 5,000 attend rally supporting Quinn family in Co Cavan>

Read: Liberty Insurance to cut 285 jobs>

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95 Comments
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    Mute Karin Muller
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    May 27th 2021, 3:51 PM

    It’ll cost the HSE? No the tax payers!

    564
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    Mute Lisa Jones
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    May 27th 2021, 4:36 PM

    @Karin Muller: i work in the HSE and just like the PUP we’ll probably be tapped again to pay the debt off for years to come. Another levy. And yes of course tax payers in general willbe paying costs for years.

    178
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    Mute David Corrigan
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    May 27th 2021, 6:10 PM

    @Lisa Jones: They waste cash like there’s no tomorrow. It will get to the stage where everyone in the country will be giving up their full salary to pay off years of complete and total mismanagement of our resources by wasters who have no clue what they are doing.

    136
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    Mute J
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    May 27th 2021, 3:52 PM

    That’s a shocking amount of money. All those corners that they cut over the years with regards to IT has finally come back to haunt them.

    378
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    Mute ⚡ Seánie ⚡
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    May 27th 2021, 3:42 PM

    The independent investigation will cost at least €100 million on top of that.

    337
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    Mute Just Some Guy
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    May 27th 2021, 3:42 PM

    and who’s fault is that then Paul?

    238
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    Mute Bingobango
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    May 27th 2021, 4:02 PM

    Best set up a commission of investigation, produce a white paper, we will definitely need a high level task force and we can finish up with a multi million Euro tribunal where none of the findings are acted upon. All this instead of doing their actual jobs in the first place. Also Paul Reid needs a pay rise of 100k.

    202
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    Mute Max Power
    Favourite Max Power
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    May 27th 2021, 4:09 PM

    Add it to the 30million bill for the PPE that was unusable that came from China … nobody is held accountable for any f ups ….That huge pay rises that the CEO got for themselves recently is definitely not performance related !

    199
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    Mute Jill Antrop
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    May 27th 2021, 3:43 PM

    Have they tried ctrl+alt+del ?

    178
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    Mute Tomo
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    May 27th 2021, 3:54 PM

    We could easily get that back if you legalised, taxed, and regulated cannabis. And hundreds of millions more…

    172
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    Mute Alan Wright
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    May 27th 2021, 4:06 PM

    Why are they even pretending with the figure of €100m. We know this will be up to €350m by the time the same ‘purchasing’ team as the NCH get their hands on the budget.

    136
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    Mute Arch Angel
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    May 27th 2021, 4:46 PM

    @Alan Wright: You could be right, but can you maybe explain precisely what your problem is with this? Is it the cost, that they delayed upgrading their systems, purchasing the best equipment and qualified staff or the fact that the customer is the HSE?
    You see, I can’t help thinking that if the HSE raised this issue at any time in the past few years and asked for the funding to do precisely these things they would have been dismissed as unnecessary. Not only that, people like you would have ridiculed them for wanting to spend public money on such outrageous things. I guess we’ll never know…

    47
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    Mute Alan Wright
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    May 27th 2021, 5:25 PM

    @Arch Angel: your assumptions of me are all wrong. I’m just against massive underbudgeting and out of control overspending e.g. the NCH fiasco. You can go cast silly assumptions on someone else there petal, kisses.

    30
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    Mute Queen of the Goths
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    May 27th 2021, 6:14 PM

    @Arch Angel: That’s EXACTLY what happened. People asked for upgrades, they were denied. I used to work for them. I talked about future-proofing the software, about upgrading to Windows 10, the fact that Flash being disabled would impact on training programmes, tonnes of stuff. We were always told, “It’s not in the budget, the Dept. of Health won’t approve that.” Soooo… is it the HSE, or the Dept. of Health/FFG government again? Any time money is spent, people whinge about “wHaT a WaStE oF tAxPaYeR mOnEy”. If it’s not spent, and things go wrong, it’s “wHy DiDn’T tHeY dO aNyThInG bEfOrE!?” It’s one of the reasons I left. Thankless job, the pay is awful if you’re not a manager, and you’re trying to do the best you can on a shoddy equipment with minimal budget. The Dept. of Health and the HSE need to realise that “cheapest” doesn’t mean “best option”.

    32
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    Mute Pat Redmond
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    May 27th 2021, 10:20 PM

    @Arch Angel: they might have tried making a business case at least

    1
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    Mute Owwwwnnnn
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    May 27th 2021, 4:32 PM

    How is this man still the CEO?

    110
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    Mute lorcs
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    May 27th 2021, 4:24 PM

    The people at the top of the HSE who signed off on years of neglect of the country’s health records and systems should carry the can. Numerous report after numerous report must have been ignored. The costs here are astronomical.

    92
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    Mute MrJohne
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    May 27th 2021, 3:58 PM

    Rebuilding a completely new system will cost about 30 million

    68
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    Mute Brendan O' Gorman
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    May 27th 2021, 3:41 PM

    The use of the word ‘trojan’ by the COO was ill advised.

    73
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    Mute Sharon Keating
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    May 27th 2021, 4:04 PM

    €100 million … talk about being reactive ..instead of proactive

    63
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    Mute Geoff Bateman
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    May 27th 2021, 3:55 PM

    just think what they could have done to the HSE with all that money

    62
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    Mute Col de Gal
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    May 27th 2021, 6:13 PM

    @Geoff Bateman: Could have added in another layer of management in a region somewhere.

    47
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    Mute Darren Mc Mahon
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    May 27th 2021, 3:39 PM

    Oh dear god!

    60
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    Mute DB
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    May 27th 2021, 4:20 PM

    Would have cost a lot less if they invested in their infrastructure

    56
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    Mute Tomás O Droma
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    May 27th 2021, 4:18 PM

    Ransom only 20 mill

    61
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    Mute Queen of the Goths
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    May 27th 2021, 6:17 PM

    @Tomás O Droma: Paying the ransom means they have incentive to do it again. Paying the ransom doesn’t mean that they get everything back. Look what happened with the oil pipeline in the US. They paid, and still have to rebuild from scratch, and their data is still leaked on the darknet.

    18
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    Mute Adrian O'Donnell
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    May 27th 2021, 4:10 PM

    At stich in time saves a lot more than nine in this case. They got caught rotten. And when the lawsuits pile in, that figure will seem small. Hope all other depts take the hint and bolster their IT budget.

    42
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    Mute MrJohne
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    May 27th 2021, 3:57 PM

    Wait is it April 01,

    35
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    Mute Richard Mccarthy
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    May 27th 2021, 5:07 PM

    So the taxpayers are on the hook for €100 HSE computer upgrades,dream on,this black hole for taxpayers money never does anything on the cheap,but the biggest worry for for taxpayers will be the Billions in compo claims that will surface if private personel details are put in the public domain,like with the army deafness compo claims back in 80s the legal profession will be only too happy to offer advise.

    30
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    Mute reginald
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    May 27th 2021, 4:55 PM

    https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/opw-criticised-over-86m-garda-hq-that-is-too-small-for-all-staff-1.4576830?mode=amp
    Throw this into the mix as well sure the taxpayer will pick this up as well.the sooner we are ruled from Europe the better because we have never been capable of ruling ourselves

    31
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    Mute DB
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    May 27th 2021, 4:20 PM

    Would have cost a lot less if they invested in their infrastructure

    27
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    Mute Scott Coulter
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    May 27th 2021, 5:26 PM

    Absolute joke of a country.

    30
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    Mute sean de paore
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    May 27th 2021, 4:39 PM

    Independent assessment “,this is just a pointless money wasting exercise.
    Security was massively lapse, ye got infiltrated, time to upgrade to proper fit for purpose systems and move on. We’ve had enough HSE independent assessments already.

    29
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    Mute Derek Walsh Ⓥ
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    May 27th 2021, 4:55 PM

    The cost of upgrading the systems is not the cost of the attack . That’s something that should have happened anyway. It’s mostly the cost of abiding future attacks. Had they done it when they were supposed to, it would have been cheaper, of course.

    23
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    Mute Craig Clancy
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    May 27th 2021, 5:07 PM

    Where are they pulling these figures from? Do we get to see a break down of where every euro is going?

    19
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    Mute JustMeHere
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    May 27th 2021, 5:20 PM

    Just pay the €20 million ransom and save us a few bob.

    11
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    Mute Life in no motion
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    May 27th 2021, 5:34 PM

    “Trojan work” ? …. Poor choice of words

    10
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    Mute Dan Linehan
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    May 27th 2021, 4:59 PM

    They should have just paid the 22 million ransom.

    10
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    Mute Steven Powell
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    May 27th 2021, 7:06 PM

    20-30 million of investment for network security and internal phishing prevention information marketing campaign seems cheap now eh. It like insurance. You don’t need until you need it.

    7
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    Mute GrumpyAulFella
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    May 27th 2021, 9:14 PM

    Will somebody tell Reid that he has a decryption key. I love the way figures are just pulled out of thin air, €100 million. Nice round sum, absolutely no basis for that figure but throw out terms like “new IT systems” and “resilience” and some other suit will sign off on the cash from the tax fund. There was nothing wrong with the hardware. This was a user education issue but I’m sure the crisis will be used now as an overtime cash cow, endless consultancy days to be expended at $1500 pd from US cyber security firms.

    7
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    Mute Sean Mcintyre
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    May 27th 2021, 5:28 PM

    They payed 1.1 million to provide support on the out of date systems. 12,000 of the 35,000 machines on windows 7 needed it to run stuff (as of December 2020) now brass tax take that 60% of 1.1million and imagine how much upgrading you could do , the budget would still probably cost them 10s of millions of euro somehow to do it

    6
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    Mute Sean Mcintyre
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    May 27th 2021, 5:30 PM

    considering windows offers free upgrades on the OS and compatibility mode for the basic softwares the cost is basically paying someone to do it and a seminar on how to use Windows 10 and then a few licenses for software which usually sell a bulk package

    4
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    Mute Sean Mcintyre
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    May 27th 2021, 5:30 PM

    considering windows offers free upgrades on the OS and compatibility mode for the basic softwares the cost is basically paying someone to do it and a seminar on how to use Windows 10 and then a few licenses for software which usually sell a bulk package

    1
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    Mute Hugh Mc Donnell
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    May 27th 2021, 7:44 PM

    The money this department consumes is a disgrace and factor all of the over runs on the new hospital alone and its staggering. Are we printing money for the hse at this point it as value has no meaning

    9
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    Mute Gregory Pym
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    May 27th 2021, 7:42 PM

    They were told to get their act together years ago. Heads should roll but won’t. Offered 90k for some one to head the HSE IT security . Their Muppets. Vastly overpaid for their incompetence.

    8
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    Mute Martin Smith
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    May 27th 2021, 11:34 PM

    Will cost the tax payer for operating windows 7 so no accountability just more tax payers money down a hole in the ground.when will reid start to be held accountable considering he is the man in charge and on €450000 a year cause we are told we have to pay big wages to attract the best.so when will he be questioned on why the it system is not fit for purpose…

    4
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    Mute Sean Mcintyre
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    May 27th 2021, 5:28 PM

    They payed 1.1 million to provide support on the out of date systems. 12,000 of the 35,000 machines on windows 7 needed it to run stuff (as of December 2020) now brass tax take that 60% of 1.1million and imagine how much upgrading you could do , the budget would still probably cost them 10s of millions of euro somehow to do it

    3
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    Mute Seán Dillon
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    May 27th 2021, 6:19 PM

    Definitely will cost, in this country of extravagant pricing.

    3
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    Mute Stephen Boland
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    May 28th 2021, 7:46 AM

    Surely you mean;
    “Cost the tax paying citizens” ?
    It seems that little detail has gone over the collective heads of those working at the Journal.

    3
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    Mute Christopher Byrne
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    May 27th 2021, 9:25 PM

    He needs to step down. Book stops with him. Do the right thing Paul

    3
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    Mute Robbie Farquharson
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    May 27th 2021, 5:18 PM

    Was the ransom paid?

    2
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    Mute Stephen Boland
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    May 28th 2021, 7:43 AM

    Surely you mean
    “Cost the tax paying citizens”
    It seems that little detail has gone over the Journal’s head again.

    2
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    Mute Sterlinghomesmarbella.com
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    May 27th 2021, 10:51 PM

    Typical media glossing over the truth.
    In costing the HSE it 100% directly costs the Irish man on the street.
    For such a crime, reducing the ability to feed thousands of children, they should be executed.

    6
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    Mute
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    May 28th 2021, 10:09 AM

    It’s really sad that it takes a cyber attack to force the HSE to finally upgrade their systems.

    2
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    Mute James Fox
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    May 27th 2021, 6:16 PM

    How many deaths will it cost

    2
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    Mute Uinsionn
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    May 28th 2021, 8:50 AM

    Wonder how much a new it system would have cost?

    1
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    Mute Frédéric Slimane
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    May 28th 2021, 10:26 AM

    I wonder if upgrading their system would have been cheaper in the long run??

    1
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    Mute Larry Rawson
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    Jun 8th 2021, 7:29 AM

    IN HSE money that would be a € Billion so……

    1
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    Mute Joseph Duggan
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    May 27th 2021, 6:49 PM

    Who will be getting that sort of money have they not them kind of people working in the he if not will the employees have to move out will they be a load of chairs

    1
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    Mute Liam Dempsey
    Favourite Liam Dempsey
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    May 29th 2021, 2:21 AM

    The HSE. has cost the tax payer hundreds of millions of Euros in pay outs over negligence in their duty and now this and no one is responsible? The HSE. is a black hole gobbling hugh amounts of money.

    1
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    Mute Sean Mcintyre
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    May 27th 2021, 5:28 PM

    They payed 1.1 million to provide support on the out of date systems. 12,000 of the 35,000 machines on windows 7 needed it to run stuff (as of December 2020) now brass tax take that 60% of 1.1million and imagine how much upgrading you could do , the budget would still probably cost them 10s of millions of euro somehow to do it

    1
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