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

Yesterday's announcement of the baseline security standards is a first step. After that, there will be a compliance framework to ensure all the public sector bodies comply with those rules and meet all those standards. Cybersecurity is not an optional area to invest in for any public sector body or something that is just nice to have. It is critical that every public sector body protect its digital State assets, in the same way it would protect its physical or financial assets, and that is now laid down in our policy. It will be supported by matters such as OGP frameworks, and the Chief Procurement Officer is working with the head of the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer, OGCIO, to ensure that when the State enters into contracts, cybersecurity will be one of the specifications and an underlying theme of those purchases. The Vice Chairman indicated that in Germany, a minimum level or measure of how much money is being allocated to cybersecurity is being introduced. I will examine that and talk to my German counterpart to see what that country is trying to achieve from that.