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

I thank the witnesses from the commission here today. I will focus on the second point in the terms of reference that refers to "the appropriate balance and disposition of personnel and structures across a joint force approach in the land, air, maritime, cyber, intelligence and space domains". That brings it into my own area of interest, particularly the cyber domain. I see it as cybersecurity, telecommunications security and maritime security but I would also add climate security. I do not know if it is in the terms of reference at present but climate security and volatility around climate are matters we must consider as part of our defences in every sense going forward. I put forward those four areas of climate security, cybersecurity, telecommunications security and maritime security. They are actually separate and distinct. While telecoms security has an overlap with cybersecurity, I do not believe it is the same thing. Cybersecurity can encompass attacks, denial-of-service attacks, hacking and all sorts of different interference involved with taking down various public or even private services, whereas telecoms security can be intercepting. We had a discussion at this committee a few weeks ago, for example, about submarine cables being intercepted off the west coast. That can be telecoms security, which can be different to cyber security. They are separate and distinct but related. As I said, maritime security is also linked and I would put climate security into the mix as well.

In terms of how Mr. O'Driscoll proposes to approach those topics within the commission, I listened to some of the contributions before me and I believe Deputy Berry or somebody else touched on how retention can be an issue. It can but it can work two ways. There can be quite strong synergies.

I worked in IT in a previous life and I was privileged to work with a number of former Defence Forces officers. Typically, they came from the old systems and signals corps. Some of them served abroad in the Lebanon and elsewhere but all of them had very strong capabilities. When they came back to Ireland or left the Defence Forces, they went out to work with private industry, some as consultants and some in different roles. They were really strong, capable people who I was delighted to have the privilege to work with in the past. That said to me there was a synergy. I do not think people were necessarily being poached by the private sector. They had served their time and perhaps done 20 years or more and were happy to move on. They had given their contribution and done the State some service. There was nothing wrong with them moving on at that point. It was a good training ground, however.

Along those lines, there may be synergies around that being a natural movement of people, which we could do here. It could actually enable us to grow our economic offering, as well as our defence offering, in terms of working in partnership and looking at career paths that span both sectors over a lifetime. There is also an opportunity for academic university courses or placements and hosting centres of excellence in those areas.

I mentioned at the outset the areas of cybersecurity, telecoms security, maritime security and climate security. I can see a scenario where Ireland becomes a centre of excellence with academic and Defence Forces expertise with that then spilling over into a wider private sector pool of knowledge that really strengthens our economic offering and our own output. I put that out there as something of significant interest. I believe the synergy is there. In the past, the Defence Forces have done that well. I would like to see that really brought to the fore in this. It is only going to be more important, over and above more conventional methods, as we go forward.