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

I asked about our level of preparedness and defence and the fact that those transatlantic cables emanate from our western shores across to the US. An extremely significant volume of data would transfer from Ireland to the US which contains a good deal of EU data also. There is 40% or more of the EU's data within Irish data centres so there are very significant volumes of data here, which is a concern both from a privacy and data protection view in terms of the data itself but also from a commercial sensitivity point of view. From a cyber security and cyber defence point of view, what is our degree of preparedness if there are any attacks on that?

On South Sudan, which the Minister touched on, I had the opportunity to visit the South Sudanese border with a group from the previous Oireachtas. I am aware that in some circles at that stage, which was late 2017, the question being asked was whether the experiment, to use that word, of South Sudan as a new, independent nation state had succeeded or whether it was regressing. I note that in one of the briefing documents Sudan is about to receive additional aid because it has been removed from various lists of terrorist sponsors. Perhaps its northern neighbours enjoy a little more success but South Sudan is problematic, to put it mildly. We saw the greatest population displacement there since the Second World War take place across the south Sudanese borders over the past five years. It is catastrophic. We have talked about Syria and other countries which are equally in disarray and difficulties but South Sudan continues to be a global black spot. I know from being on the ground on that occasion that there is a significant Irish presence, which we were very proud to see. The Minister has touched on it already but he might provide a quick update on that.