Last Friday morning, something extraordinary happened in Irish media.
Hoax bomb threats forced the evacuation of some of the country's biggest news organisations. RTÉ's Donnybrook campus was evacuated. Staff at Newstalk and Today FM had to leave their building. The Irish Independent's Dublin offices were also evacuated. Live radio programmes were interrupted. RTÉ switched to pre-recorded material before resuming live broadcasting from its mobile Roadcaster studio. For a period, some of Ireland's most important newsrooms couldn't operate normally. The safety of staff was rightly the first priority. But the events also demonstrated something important about the fragility of our communications infrastructure.
RTÉ had contingency arrangements in place that allowed it, in time, to resume live broadcasting while its main campus remained evacuated. That is communications continuity in action. And I think there's an important lesson here for every public-sector communications team in Ireland. What happens when the systems and organisations you depend on to communicate suddenly become unavailable?
Are you prepared?
Imagine it's your organisation
It's 9am on a Monday morning. You're the head of communications in a government department, local authority or public agency. You open your laptop. Your email isn't working. You try the shared drive. Nothing. Your website is down. Nobody can tell you when normal service will return. Then your phone rings. There's an urgent issue affecting your organisation. Journalists are looking for a statement. Your chief executive wants an update issued immediately. Members of the public need information. You know exactly what you want to say. You just can't say it. What do you do?
For more than 20 years, I've worked with public-sector communications teams through MediaHQ. We build software tools that help public bodies manage their media relations and maintain communications continuity. Over the years, I've worked with communications teams who take resilience seriously. They understand the risks, invest in media relations technology that delivers continuity and they think carefully about what happens when things go wrong.
But I've also seen how easily communications continuity can fall between the cracks. It’s often based on too much ‘old school’ thinking and everyone assuming someone else has a plan. Friday's events made me think about the teams who might discover, at the worst possible moment, that actually nobody does. This, I believe, is one of the biggest blind spots in public-sector communications.
A public-service problem
For public-sector organisations, this isn't simply a communications problem. It's a public-service problem. If a private company can't issue a press release for a few hours, it may lose an opportunity. If a local authority can't communicate during a water contamination incident, the consequences can be far more serious. Or if a hospital is unable to tell patients that appointments have been cancelled, people may miss essential information about their care.
Public-sector communications aren't just about reputation, publicity or explaining policy. They help people make decisions. They provide access to services. Sometimes, they protect public safety, offering advice on how to act in particular situations.
Crisis communications is not communications continuity
Public-sector communications teams are experienced at dealing with difficult situations. But many plans make one enormous assumption. They assume that when the crisis arrives, the systems needed to communicate will still work. That email will be available. That the website will be online. That staff will be able to contact one another. What if none of those assumptions hold? Here's the distinction that I think matters:
Crisis communications is about what you say when something goes wrong. Communications continuity is about whether you can say it at all.
Imagine you're the communications director of a county council. There's a serious water supply problem affecting thousands of households. You have a crisis communications plan. You know the messages. Your chief executive has approved the statement. But your email system is down. Your website is unavailable. Your media contacts are stored on an inaccessible network. How do you reach local radio? How do you contact regional newspapers? How do you get information to community organisations? And how do you reach residents who aren't on social media?
What Friday taught us
Two things about Friday's events struck me. The first is how quickly normal communications infrastructure can become unavailable. Buildings were evacuated. Broadcast schedules were interrupted. Newsrooms had to change how they operated. It didn't require a cyberattack to cause disruption. The second is what happened next. RTÉ had an alternative way of broadcasting. Its Roadcaster allowed live programmes to resume outside the main studios. The disruption was real. But the organisation had another way of delivering an essential service.
There's another lesson here. Your organisation might be operating perfectly, but the people you depend on to carry your message may not be. A newsroom can be evacuated. A broadcaster can go off air. A distribution channel can become unavailable. Communications continuity isn't just about protecting your own systems. It's about understanding the resilience of the entire chain between you and your audience.
Now think about that in the context of a public body. If your office was evacuated tomorrow, where would your communications team work? If your network was unavailable, how would you access your contacts? If your normal approver couldn't be reached, who would make the decision?
The 30-minute test
Here's an exercise I'd encourage every public-sector communications director in Ireland to try. Bring your team together. Tell them to imagine that tomorrow morning they have no access to their normal email or internal network.
Then ask one question. How would we issue an urgent public statement in the next 30 minutes?
Don't just discuss it. Actually try to do it.
- Can you contact the decision-makers?
- Can you access your media contacts?
- Can you obtain approval?
- Can you distribute the statement independently of your normal systems?
- Can you confirm that the most important recipients have received it?
Use a fictional scenario and designated test recipients. You don't want to send a fake emergency to real journalists. But make the exercise realistic. I guarantee you'll learn something. It's much better to discover a weakness during an exercise than during an emergency.
We've been warned before
Friday wasn't the first reminder of how vulnerable our institutions can be. Think about the HSE ransomware attack in May 2021. To contain the attack, the HSE shut down its ICT network. Essential systems became unavailable and healthcare services were severely disrupted. Staff lost access to email, networked telephone services and patient information. Many had to return to mobile phones, paper records and face-to-face communication.
The British Library cyberattack in 2023 provides another example. With its website and internal systems disrupted, the Library had to find alternative ways to communicate. These incidents were different from Friday's threats, but they exposed a common vulnerability. Public institutions have become extraordinarily dependent on technology. Email. Shared drives. Cloud platforms. Contact databases. Websites. Telecommunications. Most of the time, everything works. Until it doesn't.
Your message must get through. How will you make sure it does?
Jack Murray is the founder and CEO of MediaHQ and author of The Magic Slice. For more than 20 years, he has worked with public-sector communications teams and organisations to help them tell their stories and reach the audiences that matter.
Sources and Further Reading
Media disruption — 6 November 2026
1. RTÉ News (6 November 2026).
Gardaí sweep RTÉ headquarters in Dublin after bomb threat.
Reporting on the evacuation of RTÉ's Donnybrook campus, interruptions to broadcasting, the use of RTÉ's mobile Roadcaster and Director General Kevin Bakhurst's comments about contingency planning.
https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2026/1106/1598241-rte-evacuation/
2. The Irish Times (7 November 2026).
State will ‘go after’ those responsible for bomb threats, Taoiseach says.
Reporting on the threats affecting RTÉ, Newstalk and other Irish media organisations, and the Government's response.
3. RadioToday Ireland (6 November 2026).
Bomb threats take radio broadcasters off-air.
Coverage of interruptions to RTÉ Radio 1 and Newstalk, including the disruption to live programming and the resumption of broadcasting.
https://radiotoday.ie/2026/11/bomb-threats-take-radio-broadcasters-off-air/
Public-sector cyberattacks and service disruption
4. Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General (2022).
Financial Impact of Cyber Security Attack.
An examination of the May 2021 HSE ransomware attack, its operational and financial consequences, preparedness and recovery.
5. British Library (8 March 2024).
Learning Lessons from the Cyber-Attack: British Library Cyber Incident Review.
An institutional review of the October 2023 cyberattack, examining service disruption, recovery, organisational resilience and lessons for other institutions.
Communications resilience and continuity planning
6. National Cyber Security Centre, Ireland (2022).
Cyber Security Baseline Standards.
Guidance for Irish public-service bodies on cybersecurity preparedness, operational dependencies, continuity procedures, backup arrangements and testing.
https://ncsc.gov.ie/pdfs/Cyber_Security_Baseline_Standards_Rev_1_2022_Final.pdf
7. National Cyber Security Centre, UK (2026).
Disruptive Cyber Attacks: Preparing Your Business Continuity.
Practical guidance on preparing for service disruption, maintaining essential operations and planning for recovery following cyber incidents.
https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/collection/disruptive-cyber-attacks/preparing/1-prepare-business-continuity
8. National Cyber Security Centre, UK.
Exercise in a Box.
Free scenario-based exercises designed to help organisations test their preparedness and response to cybersecurity incidents, including ransomware and supply-chain disruption.
https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/section/exercise-in-a-box/overview
