James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for the update. I will focus on two issues he touched on in both his update and in the briefing material provided from the EU Foreign Affairs Council meetings. There was a significant discussion in the Council on Russian activities and influence. In the main, it seemed to be around the geographical sphere of influence on the borders in eastern Europe and into Ukraine, Belarus, etc. I am interested in that but I am also interested in a wider sphere. Was there any discussion at that meeting or at other recent meetings on disinformation campaigns, which may have been advanced beyond their immediate geographical sphere across the EU, perhaps into Ireland or further afield into the US? Is that a concern to the Council? Is it something that has been discussed?

On a related note, I ask about Ireland's position on housing up to 40% or more of the EU's datasets, the predominance of US but also other multinational technology, financial services, pharma, life sciences and other companies in Ireland as the European, Middle East and African headquarters? There are very significant commercial activities and data activities in Ireland, which is a good thing. It is something we want to propagate, continue and welcome and is fundamental to our own economic strategy but it leaves us somewhat exposed in terms of cyber security and attacks and threats. It may be more a question on the defence side than the foreign affairs side, although I believe it touches on both, but in terms of hostile actors, be they other nation states or non-nation actors, what is our state of preparedness for that?

On the same theme, we have the transatlantic cables at a proximity to data transfers, both across the EU and back to the US. I believe there is an exposure in that in terms of attacks on cyber security, which may tie in to some of those points. That is one set of questions.