Dr. Richard Browne:

Energy is obviously fundamental to the economy and society. It is a heavily protected and defended, and very heavily regulated, sector, with its own energy security of supply and security provisions already in place. Our role in energy has included all the audits and all the processes we talked about. Brexit has had some effect, but it is not material because our European requirements are supplied regardless. In addition, and this is very important, national security is not a European competence. There is ongoing engagement with the UK on North-South and east-west security issues. I will come to the Russia situation in a second. We are very much aware of the changing landscape as a consequence of Brexit and have already adapted. We have a new North-South, east-west organisation on cybersecurity, involving officials only, with the UK to cover all-island issues.

Speaking specifically to the recent conflict and the implications for us, it is a given that energy is a major dependency for this State, as is the case for every state. As a State on an island, we have a number of obvious challenges with regard to interconnection and the nature of our grid. We are very much aware of those. Much of our work has focused on mitigating those risks. Again, this is not new to us. This is an issue we have been very much aware of and across for five or six years. There is nothing to report regarding gaps or vulnerabilities in that regard.