Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

One of the reasons the budget was increased was a projected increased capital spend, which is to provide a new headquarters for the National Cyber Security Centre. They have identified a location for that and are working with the OPW in that regard. This will provide a joint security operations centre, which is where the CSIRT-IE incidence response team can be gathered together when there is an incident that needs to be managed and monitored. That budget increase is so we have that best possible world-class facility. To this end, senior members of staff toured other cybersecurity operations centres in other countries to see how they work. That was part of the reason for the increase in the budget.

The increase in threats and the increase in numbers of services being offered online means that cybersecurity needs more money. This is why we agreed to increase the budget last year, and this is why the budget will be increased again next year.