Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his presentation. He will rightly understand that, as politicians, we all share the same objective. It is, in the first instance, to try to understand insofar as we can, what vulnerabilities existed that we might have protected against and then what we can do, from a legislative perspective, to put ourselves front and centre in the defence against the next wave of cyberattacks. I have watched the Minister of State's television and media appearances in recent days and it is clear that he is far better versed in this area than I am, or perhaps others are. He is well suited to the job at hand.

From my perspective, I want to understand what gaps he has identified. Is it possible that we could have been better protected or that our overall defence architecture could have been better? This is not about blaming anybody. It is about an iterative approach to the learnings towards finding a solution. It would be remiss if we were dive in and attempt to find a solution without first taking a careful approach to understanding what happened and what needs to be put in place.

We had some discussions last week about a review that was already under way. Is there some report or perhaps a draft report in place? Maybe the Minister of State could confirm that and whether he would be in a position to share that with the committee on a confidential basis, if necessary. We all recognise what happened here. There are committees in other jurisdictions that are briefed in a very detailed way about matters of national security, and this is certainly one. It is the case that documents circulate from committees but in an issue like this, it might be worth, on a pilot basis, briefing the committee and, if necessary, having people sign the Official Secrets Act, to see if we can develop some kind of an approach towards an ongoing process in terms of an input into the defence.

I do not know if the Minister of State had the opportunity to hear some of the briefings yesterday but one of the contractors made it clear that cybersecurity is not a destination; it is a journey. That would seem to suggest that we need to be engaged on an ongoing basis. I will leave it at that and will listen to what the Minister of State has to say.