Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State's presentation. To put it starkly, Mr. Padraic O'Reilly stated yesterday that ransomware attacks have gone up by 311% in the past number of years. Mr. Pat Larkin told us that where they once dealt with one ransomware attack a week it is now happening every day. We all get that this is incredibly serious. I think we would all accept that, due to the ad hocnature of the HSE and the historical way the network architecture and whatever else was designed, it was probably susceptible to such an attack. We need the results of the review to be communicated to us in whatever way so we can play a part in that. That review will deal with staffing and any capacity requirements.

Can the Minister of State provide any information on the primary legislation being suggested and what gaps it would be designed to try to plug? Obviously there is a need to deal with this problem in a technological, legal and international way. We want these people to become pariahs and we want it to become uncomfortable for states that have allowed some of this action to do continue to so. As regards the critical organisations with which the Minister of State is dealing, it is hoped that the NCSC has sufficient capacity to ensure compliance and enforcement. What is the state of play in that regard? I accept that the Minister of State is not going to give specifics. Some of the speakers yesterday talked about the fact that the budget is insufficient. They also said we need a greater level of maturity and a defensive ecosystem, and that we not only need defensive capacity but also counterstrike capacity.