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

One of the questions the Senator asked was whether the members of the Cabinet understand the seriousness of cybersecurity with reference to foreign direct investment. They do. This is an issue the American Chamber of Commerce and other lobby groups for multinationals bring up because they want to have a secure environment in which to locate their data and do business. That is completely understood.

In general, the gist of what Senator Craughwell had to say is that he is concerned that cybersecurity is not being taken seriously, that adequate resources are not being given to it and that it is not understood within the Government how important it is. I would like to reassure him that none of that is true, that everybody understands how incredibly important it is to protect our national assets and critical infrastructure and that there are huge costs to being attacked, and that we have to do everything we need to do to be the best in class for cybersecurity.