About Micheál O'Dowd

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So far Micheál O'Dowd has created 37 blog entries.

HSE Data Breach – September Update (is the truth starting to come out?)

On the 15th May 2021 the Data Protection Officer (DPO) for the HSE made a data breach notification to the Data Protection Commission. In that notification he said that a day earlier the HSE suffered a data security breach of its IT systems.

After some difficulty we have obtained the official data breach notification pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act. In the notification to the Data Protection Commission the stark facts were set out bluntly; approximately 4.9 million people had been affected by the breach, and the data disclosed to certain nefarious actors included

  1. Data Subject Identity data (name, surname, […]
By |2021-09-30T10:00:16+01:00September 29th, 2021|

2021 Conveyancing Guide now available

We realised our old Conveyancing Guide was now hopelessly out of date, so there was nothing for it only to update it for 2021. We try to be as honest as possible, don’t do any hard sell, try and get you to jump through hoops, or make your life more difficult than it needs to be in any way, that goes for both downloading the guide and retaining us as your Solicitors.

As always please do not hesitate to contact us if you need a quote to buy, sell or re-mortgage using our online form. 

By |2021-09-06T22:16:12+01:00September 6th, 2021|

Google Reviews, the rule of Law, and Big Tech having a laugh

We note that today the office of the Irish Data Protection Commission levied a fine of €225m on Whatsapp, a messaging arm of Facebook. This was done in the context of outrage from a number of other European Data Protection Commissioners. They felt quite rightfully that the original proposed fine of €30m was far too low given the revenues of Facebook. It was not a sufficient incentive to obey the law.

Overall, it looks very bad for Ireland that the Irish DPC had to be dragged kicking a screaming to levy a sensible fine for egregious breaches of European law. None […]

By |2021-09-02T15:07:47+01:00September 2nd, 2021|

Covid 19, Data Protection and the Workplace. An explosive mix?

It appears that many solicitors have expressed their views on the legal issues that will arise from people returning to the workplace post Covid. The only common ground shared is that “there are legal issues!” The following should not be taken as legal advice, and has no basis more reliable than our own meandering experience (to misquote Baz Luhrmann).

Can an employees pay be cut if they do not return to the workplace?

Almost certainly yes. The following is an extract from a tech company’s contract:

Your place of work will be [Office address]. You may be required to undertake normal business […]

By |2021-08-18T18:01:23+01:00August 17th, 2021|

HSE Cyber Attack – July Update

It remains something of a surprise to us that there has been so little media coverage of late of the HSE Cyber Attack. Almost two months has now passed since the hacking incident and it appears that health services are still greatly affected and the Health Service Executive remains remarkably reticent to say what happened. They are even slower to say what is being done to remediate matters. We have spoken to a great many people about their experiences since the Cyber attack, and the following seems to be current position:

Health Services

From a health care point of view it seems […]

By |2021-07-08T23:07:32+01:00July 8th, 2021|

HSE Cyber Attack – A guide to the Law

Following from our blog post this day last week two things became immediately obvious; firstly people were very interested in the issue, and secondly, no one really understood the Law surrounding the GDPR, and the potential exposure the HSE has created for the Irish State.

We have now written as well researched and cited a guide on the law as we possibly can given the time frame allowed. We will convert this into a HTML page in due course, but for now it may be downloaded here.

As always, please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any queries, […]

By |2022-12-04T23:06:44+00:00May 24th, 2021|

HSE Cyber Attack – Open Letter to Minister Donnelly

Mondays blog post generated quite a response. Although we were not named by Minister Donnelly, we must assume we (and no doubt other colleagues) were being referred to on the 20th May in his Newstalk interview (HSE cyber attack: ‘Distasteful’ legal firms ‘licking their lips’ at thoughts of suing State | Newstalk)

We were afforded the right of reply, which we did this morning (Solicitor ‘astounded’ at Donnelly claim lawyers licking lips over HSE cyber attack | Newstalk).

We have now taken it upon ourselves to send an open letter to Mr. Donnelly, calling on him to inform individual data […]

By |2021-07-08T22:57:52+01:00May 21st, 2021|

HSE Cyber Attack

As experts in Data Protection we have got numerous phone calls in the past few days in relation to the HSE Cyber Attack. Many people are genuinely worried what the implication of this attack are for them. For now, it is too early to say with any degree of certainty, but as time passes the true cost and implications of this attack will become clear.

It appears at this stage that hackers have got access to certain health data relating to individuals. How they got his would be speculation at this stage, however the very fact the HSE system was compromised […]

By |2022-12-04T23:07:44+00:00May 17th, 2021|

The Wildlife Act & Cutting Hedges

We have had a number of queries from clients with developmental and agricultural holdings in respect of the legality (or illegality) of cutting hedges during the “closed season”. The Wildlife Act 1976 (as amended) provides that it is illegal to cut hedges from the 1st March to the 31st August. This is for the very good reason that birds and wildlife tend to be nesting and active in the hedgerows during that time of the year.

Farmers and developers often note that it is very difficult, or even impossible to maintain hedges in fields during the winter. It is however worth […]

By |2021-03-09T11:53:36+00:00March 9th, 2021|

More Covid Updates

We continue to to be open for business as an essential service. In the interests of the safety and well being of our staff we are however avoid in person meetings as much as possible. We can however facilitate consultations by Zoom, Teams, Face time or our own favorite “Whereby”,

Stay Safe,  from all at O’Dowd Solicitors.

 

By |2021-03-01T16:38:16+00:00March 1st, 2021|
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