HSE emails affected as global Microsoft outage hits Ireland

The Health Service Executive (HSE) said it has been impacted by the global Microsoft outage with emails not being transmitted.

There have also been “intermittent problems” with Microsoft videoconferencing facilities.

Services have not been impacted so far, however, and a spokesperson said the HSE will engage with services and patients if impacts occur.

Cork City Council said a number of its services, including email, have been affected.

A spokesperson said: “Our ICT team is working to introduce temporary solutions and is awaiting updates from Microsoft. In the meantime we apologise for the disruption and for any delays. Updates will be provided later.”

Microsoft is racing to restore its services after the worldwide outage disrupted businesses and government agencies, leaving users unable to access workplace software in one of the company’s most significant technology failures in years.

The disruption, which began on Thursday and continued into Friday, left users unable to send or receive emails through Outlook. It also affected Microsoft Teams, its Copilot AI assistant and other Microsoft 365 services.

Sinn Féin TD Máire Devine said the disruption “appears to be affecting Oireachtas services including email”.

The Dublin Central TD said people can ring her constituency office, but “we won’t be able to submit representations to Dublin City Council or Government departments until Microsoft resolves the worldwide issues.”

Microsoft said it had tried several solutions to mitigate the problems, including isolating parts of its infrastructure and shifting traffic to alternate routes.

“We’ve monitored the status of the changes applied to improve serviceability and confirmed that change is not taking as expected,” the company said.