Ms Nóirín O'Sullivan:

Cyber crime is one of the future threats we have identified and it is growing at an exponential rate. Every police force in the world is dealing with it and there is collaboration. Recently we amalgamated the domestic violence and sexual assault units and a key part is the paedophile investigation unit. We are identifying the capabilities required in this regard. The computer crime investigation unit is up and running and an extensive amount of work has been done. We are not on our own in dealing with this issue, as everybody is exploring it. At the rate at which it is growing, how do we stay ahead of the problem? It is important that the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources have a high level group and a national cyber strategy in place. We have staff at a very high level in that group and are represented on the cyber emergency response team under that Department. We also have an internal cyber strategy. The Senator asked about economic crimes. We look at the issues involved, cyber crime in particular.