Noel Harrington (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for the presentation. One element discussed is the reduction of cost in deploying high-speed electronic communications networks. In light of the announcement made recently regarding bringing fibre to communities throughout the country, will there be implications arising from what we are discussing today; could it help the initiative or is there the possibility that it will delay us because we must agree this before we decide to achieve what we want in rolling out fibre to different communities throughout the country?

Will the Minister flesh out the voluntary versus mandatory position on the reporting of cyber incidents? I do not know if it is related but we heard last week about the global eBay issue and surely there should be some reporting of minor incidents that always seem to occur. Will the Minister outline why he is taking the voluntary course of action rather than a mandatory approach? There are to be computer emergency response teams, like cyber SWAT teams, to deal with some of these issues. It is the right concept if we can get our heads around it. The matter of trust in networks is a big issue so why are we adopting a voluntary approach?