Dr. Michael Scott:

Coming back to one of the first points, the Department of Defence is the obvious place for it to be. I do not know why cybersecurity is handled where it is at present. It seems slightly bizarre. I am sure there is some historical justification for it. I will explain one of the differences in Ireland. Countries like the UK had something in place prior to cybersecurity being an issue - they had signals intelligence with organisations such as MI5, MI6 and GCHQ. They always had an interest in this area, and cybersecurity fitted nicely into and developed from that. The military complex was a good starting point for issues of cybersecurity. We did not have any of that in Ireland. We came naked into the world in 2012. That could have been an opportunity to get it right, but unfortunately we did not. We lagged behind and were tardy in our response. We have got to the current situation, where danger has ramped up far ahead of our defensive capability. We are in a sorry state, one of confusion, about how to proceed. We need to take this seriously, make a serious investment, and try to get it right.