General Irish Government discussion thread [See Post 1805]

Hotblack Desiato

Bishop of hope wrote: »

Ah sure it's all irrelevant isn't it.
It must be great to have such a loyal following.
To me it's just another sign of gross incompetence.

Ever managed a fleet of ~50,000 PCs across hundreds of locations nationwide...?

NIMAN

I love how the public think that FF will sort out the hospital and homelessness crisis if they are elected.

Jim2007

NIMAN wrote: »

I love how the public think that FF will sort out the hospital and homelessness crisis if they are elected.

Well it is less painful than having to face reality - you cannot fix either problem on the cheap!

NIMAN

Jim2007 wrote: »

Well it is less painful than having to face reality - you cannot fix either problem on the cheap! ever

FYP.

Bishop of hope

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Ever managed a fleet of ~50,000 PCs across hundreds of locations nationwide...?

No I haven't tbf, I've managed logistics and supplies for some pretty large building companies across hundreds of jobs though as part of a team.
You did your job and if you didn't you got sacked.

L1011

Soulsun wrote: »

When is the election likely to be called folks?

Next week, either because they can try claim some glory if Stormont does restart or to evade a confidence vote in Harris

Phoebas

Bishop of hope wrote: »

Ah sure it's all irrelevant isn't it.
It must be great to have such a loyal following.
To me it's just another sign of gross incompetence.

That's a low bar for 'gross incompetence'.

Sure the HSE should keep their software up to date, but enhanced support is available to give them time to do that.

Of all of the problems in the health service, this ranks among the least serious.

I've got zero doubt that when the HSE announce their IT modernisation plans that include the costs of upgrading these OS's with the associated costs of upgrading the hardware they sit on and the software that sits upon them, we're going to have the same voices declaring it as 'gross incompetence' **

** (depending on whose in Government at the time)

Bishop of hope

Phoebas wrote: »

That's a low bar for 'gross incompetence'.

Sure the HSE should keep their software up to date, but enhanced support is available to give them time to do that.

Of all of the problems in the health service, this ranks among the least serious.

I've got zero doubt that when the HSE announce their IT modernisation plans that include the costs of upgrading these OS's with the associated costs of upgrading the hardware they sit on and the software that sits upon them, we're going to have the same voices declaring it as 'gross incompetence' **

** (depending on whose in Government at the time)

No no.
This is going to have to be done, Next Govt if its FF for instance with a partner will and can rightly so call it gross incompetence from the previous administration that it wasn't done.
It will then be blamed on FG for instance, but this must lie with the it management within the hse themselves as well.
We need a minister and a Govt to reform the higher management within the hse itself, that's the crux.

Phoebas

^^ I think some people have a very muddled picture of what the Minister for Health does day to day.

I doubt he's attending meetings where the relative merits of upgrading PCs vs purchasing support agreements are weighed.

Bishop of hope

Phoebas wrote: »

^^ I think some people have a very muddled picture of what the Minister for Health does day to day.

I doubt he's attending meetings where the relative merits of upgrading PCs vs purchasing support agreements are weighed.

What does he do?
See your attitude and others is why we have an inefficient health service.
Whom does the buck stop with?

Phoebas

Bishop of hope wrote: »

What does he do?
See your attitude and others is why we have an inefficient health service.
Whom does the buck stop with?

Me. Apparently.

Bishop of hope

Little true story.
On Dec 30th last I was booked into cavan general for a minor day surgery.
Arrive at booking office produce letter and my name is on a list for day ward on the admittance conputer, I'm told to go to day ward they're expecting me.
I follow signs for day ward, get there and open door, it's in darkness apart from emergency lighting. There are 5 other people in the waiting room already.
We say hello and wonder where everyone is, by the by 12 of us are waiting, still no lights on this is now 8:15, we were tod be there by 7:45.
Around 8:30 the lights go on and a nurse enters, she asks us why we are there, we tell her we have appointments.
She goes in to her office switches on her computer, she then tells us she has no days urgery list on her system and there will be no day surgery that day as there is no staff in to handle it
We prepare to leave when in walks a doctor and says to her we are ready for the first patient in 15 mins.
She tells him the story and says it can't go ahead.
He closes office door and he and her have a conversation.
Door opens, doc says sorry for the delay but we will be running about an hour late, sorry for the inconvenience.
Within a few mins there are 5 nurses running round the place and we are gotten ready.
Now half of us got done early and got home the other half had to be kept overnight because their procedures were too late to be let out the same day.
A lack of computer synchronisation cost the hospital 6 beds that night. A not insignificant number, so the little things add up to big things.

Bishop of hope

Phoebas wrote: »

Me. Apparently.

Lol, OK you incompetent fool.

PeadarCo

Bishop of hope wrote: »

What does he do?
See your attitude and others is why we have an inefficient health service.
Whom does the buck stop with?

Question for you why is the failure to upgrade a clear sign of incompetence when there is no reason available for the delay?

As people here have repeatedly pointed out changing from Windows 7 to presumably Windows 10 is a massive IT change. Just because a programme works on W7 does not mean it will work on W10 as I imagine that most of the software and hardware that the operating system run and use are not made by either the government or Microsoft. So there will be compatibility issues.

For example given that some of these systems are essential to stop people from dying why risk peoples lives by rushing an upgrade? There could also be other countless other reasons for the delay.

Bishop of hope

"Microsoft's obsolete Windows 7 operating system will be cut off from security support worldwide next week, a deadline that has been flagged for five years.

The health body has had repeated warnings about the deadline from IT security experts and Microsoft, but still operates 46,000 of its 58,000 PCs and laptops on the outdated system which now needs expensive emergency intervention.

Three years ago, the HSE failed to upgrade PCs from Windows XP, causing a temporary shutdown of HSE systems from the notorious WannaCry ransomware virus and causing patient appointments to be cancelled. "

Lads, get a grip of yourselves, this is incompetence, and not the first time either.

marieholmfan

Are they not all backwards compatible?

PeadarCo wrote: »

Question for you why is the failure to upgrade a clear sign of incompetence when there is no reason available for the delay?

As people here have repeatedly pointed out changing from Windows 7 to presumably Windows 10 is a massive IT change. Just because a programme works on W7 does not mean it will work on W10 as I imagine that most of the software and hardware that the operating system run and use are not made by either the government or Microsoft. So there will be compatibility issues.

For example given that some of these systems are essential to stop people from dying why risk peoples lives by rushing an upgrade? There could also be other countless other reasons for the delay.

L1011

marieholmfan wrote: »

Are they not all backwards compatible?

Not 100% or even close to.

Also external equipment may have supporting hardware that doesn't work with newer equipment at all either.

marieholmfan

L1011 wrote: »

Not 100% or even close to.

Also external equipment may have supporting hardware that doesn't work with newer equipment at all either.

No I can certainly see that if your custom blood fractionation software only works on Windows XP and the guy who wrote it has retired you might regard it as necessary to keep windows XP - but couldn't you virtualise it or something?

LordBasil

Bishop of hope wrote: »

Probably before the election after next anyway.
They made a mistake overlooking him after Enda, I would have thought of him as the natural successor then.

Maybe but don't forget that Micháel Martin and Michael McGrath are in the same constituency as him and outpoll him in elections there. FG Parliamentary Party didn't have confidence that Coveney could be an election winner as he was beaten in to 4th place by both MMG and MM on FPV but also by Sinn Fein on Transfers. Varadkar topped the poll in his constituency.

Also FG knew to retain power they need to hold on to as many Dublin seats as possible so went with Dublin based Leo.

McMurphy

Jim2007 wrote: »

Well it is less painful than having to face reality - you cannot fix either problem on the cheap!

Enda didn't seem to think so.




I think I read somewhere that sick people languishing on trolleys reached its highest numbers, ever, breaking all records in the states history this week.

That's a full 9 years after FG got in.

Time to let others have a go at it I reckon.

Phoebas

marieholmfan wrote: »

No I can certainly see that if your custom blood fractionation software only works on Windows XP and the guy who wrote it has retired you might regard it as necessary to keep windows XP - but couldn't you virtualise it or something?

Even if you virualise it, you still need the XP support.

A big problem that the HSE will have is that they will have a whole range of software from a whole range of vendors running on their old XP infrastructure.

Most of it will probably be fine running on an updated OS, but they'll need to back to the vendors and do a considerable amount of testing work to find out. In many cases, this will involve writing big cheques to Accenture and the like.

A lot of organisations in my experience use this as a forced opportunity to modernise; of course that makes it even more difficult and expensive, so you can see why buying time with an extended support contract is attractive.

Why anyone would expect the government to be involved at this level of decision making is beyond me.

L1011

marieholmfan wrote: »

No I can certainly see that if your custom blood fractionation software only works on Windows XP and the guy who wrote it has retired you might regard it as necessary to keep windows XP - but couldn't you virtualise it or something?

When the kit needs a PCI card, serial port or - this can happen - an ISA card (standard that stopped being current over 25 years ago) virtualisation is either unreliable and complicated or impossible.

Dytalus

Phoebas wrote: »

Why anyone would expect the government to be involved at this level of decision making is beyond me.

In my (admittedly limited) experience of Public Sector work, the only time a government member would get involved in software updating would be to sign any contracts that needed signing (if you had to update or get new service contracts, for example). It'd be an entirely civil servant operated task from beginning until the very end where the minister is briefed by civil servants and signs.

With the HSE, as a public body and not government Department, I'm not even sure the Minister would sign. Probably the CEO instead.

Bishop of hope

Dytalus wrote: »

In my (admittedly limited) experience of Public Sector work, the only time a government member would get involved in software updating would be to sign any contracts that needed signing (if you had to update or get new service contracts, for example). It'd be an entirely civil servant operated task from beginning until the very end where the minister is briefed by civil servants and signs.

With the HSE, as a public body and not government Department, I'm not even sure the Minister would sign. Probably the CEO instead.

So it's incompetence in the hse. At least that's cleared up.
It's great isn't it, the minister for health isn't responsible for the hse, the minister for housing isn't responsible for building houses etc etc.
I'm really impressed by the lack of responsibility needed to be a minister.
They're laughing all the way to their pensions, aren't they?

PeadarCo

Bishop of hope wrote: »

So it's incompetence in the hse. At least that's cleared up.
It's great isn't it, the minister for health isn't responsible for the hse, the minister for housing isn't responsible for building houses etc etc.
I'm really impressed by the lack of responsibility needed to be a minister.
They're laughing all the way to their pensions, aren't they?

You do realise that you have provided no evidence of incompetence. A number of posters have detailed a number of reasons for why paying to extend might be the best option for the HSE ie its the opposite of incompetence and those explanations have been ignored. And as we have no reason for this no one can say for certain if its a good or bad decision.

markodaly

Are we seriously talking about the government being responsible for upgrading the OS of a bunch of PC's now?

beggars_bush

Bishop of hope wrote: »

Little true story.
On Dec 30th last I was booked into cavan general for a minor day surgery.
Arrive at booking office produce letter and my name is on a list for day ward on the admittance conputer, I'm told to go to day ward they're expecting me.
I follow signs for day ward, get there and open door, it's in darkness apart from emergency lighting. There are 5 other people in the waiting room already.
We say hello and wonder where everyone is, by the by 12 of us are waiting, still no lights on this is now 8:15, we were tod be there by 7:45.
Around 8:30 the lights go on and a nurse enters, she asks us why we are there, we tell her we have appointments.
She goes in to her office switches on her computer, she then tells us she has no days urgery list on her system and there will be no day surgery that day as there is no staff in to handle it
We prepare to leave when in walks a doctor and says to her we are ready for the first patient in 15 mins.
She tells him the story and says it can't go ahead.
He closes office door and he and her have a conversation.
Door opens, doc says sorry for the delay but we will be running about an hour late, sorry for the inconvenience.
Within a few mins there are 5 nurses running round the place and we are gotten ready.
Now half of us got done early and got home the other half had to be kept overnight because their procedures were too late to be let out the same day.
A lack of computer synchronisation cost the hospital 6 beds that night. A not insignificant number, so the little things add up to big things.

Yep.
Also people actually not turning up to their own appointments is another huge issue.

Bishop of hope

markodaly wrote: »

Are we seriously talking about the government being responsible for upgrading the OS of a bunch of PC's now?

Well "we" weren't as yet have you an opinion?
Given that in the past it caused problems with the XP system, security compromised and procedures cancelled.

beggars_bush

markodaly wrote: »

Are we seriously talking about the government being responsible for upgrading the OS of a bunch of PC's now?

If they don't provide the funding and have capable people in place to run the hse, then yes
Look at the children's hospital fiasco

markodaly

beggars_bush wrote: »

If they don't provide the funding and have capable people in place to run the hse, then yes
Look at the children's hospital fiasco

a) The government are not and should not be involved in day to day hire of IT staff, that would be stupid.
b) The government provides the HSE with €17.4 Billion for 2020, enough to update the OS in these PC's.