{"id":144084,"date":"2025-10-25T05:14:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T05:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/144084\/"},"modified":"2025-10-25T05:14:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T05:14:13","slug":"defective-block-grant-scheme-firm-hit-by-cyber-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/144084\/","title":{"rendered":"Defective block grant scheme firm hit by cyber attack"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"GettyGetty Images<\/p>\n

An engineering firm that works with Ireland’s Housing Agency has been targeted in a cyber attack<\/p>\n

A cyber attack on a firm that works on a scheme to help people whose homes are crumbling in the Republic of Ireland has been described as “concerning”.<\/p>\n

The Irish government ‘s Housing Agency said it had been notified of the “cyber incident” involving engineering firm, Jennings O’Donovan, which assesses defective block grant scheme applications.<\/p>\n

Personal data – including addresses, personal contact details and photos of affected homes – may have been impacted, the agency said.<\/p>\n

Jennings O’Donovan said the incident involved “temporary unauthorised access to a limited part of our IT system” and that “personal financial information was stored securely on systems that have been unaffected”.<\/p>\n

The Housing Agency said the attack had been “isolated to one engineering company, ” and that it was in the process of contacting affected applicants.<\/p>\n

Charles Ward TD (member of the Irish parliament), from the 100% Redress Party, said he was “deeply concerned by reports of a cyber attack”. <\/p>\n

Ward said the people affected needed to be given more information.<\/p>\n

He said they now need “full clarification on the timeline, nature of compromised data, and the steps being taken to safeguard records and affected homeowners”.<\/p>\n

“Families entrusted highly sensitive information to this process, believing it would be handled with care,” the Donegal TD said.<\/p>\n

“They are entitled to complete transparency and clear, honest answers.”<\/p>\n

\"JoyJoy Beard <\/p>\n

Thousands of homes in the Republic of Ireland are crumbling because of defective concrete blocks<\/p>\n

Thousands of homes in the Republic of Ireland – mostly in counties Clare, Donegal, Limerick, Mayo and Sligo – have crumbled in recent years because of defective bricks.<\/a><\/p>\n

That is because of the presence of water-absorbing minerals that cause the bricks to crack with the result that many homes now need to be demolished.<\/p>\n

The Housing Agency said it was “working closely with Jennings O’Donovan to ascertain as much information as possible surrounding the cyber incident”.<\/p>\n

It is also contacting people affected to advise them of the cyber incident.<\/p>\n

“If applicants have not been contacted they are not impacted by this cyber incident,” the agency said<\/p>\n

Officials have also notified the Data Protection Commissioner in the Republic of Ireland and all other relevant local authorities.<\/p>\n

A Jennings O’Donovan spokesperson said the firm “recently experienced a network disruption involving temporary unauthorised access to a limited part of our IT system”.<\/p>\n

They said the firm, following its protocols, “immediately responded to identify and isolate affected systems and investigate alongside external specialists” and that the measures “ensured we successfully mitigated any disruption”.<\/p>\n

“Any personal financial information was stored securely on systems that have been unaffected by the disruption. We remain in regular contact with our clients and the relevant authorities,” they added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Images An engineering firm that works with Ireland’s Housing Agency has been targeted in a cyber attack…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144085,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-144084","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115433102809930817","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}