Ms Caitr?ona Heinl:

To speak to the question about the whole-of-government aspect, I would also like to emphasise the whole-of-society perspective. It will be remembered from the findings of the Commission on the Defence Forces report that the emphasis there was on the whole-of-government perspective. In addition to establishing the frameworks vis-à-vis a whole-of-Government context, it is also necessary to bear in mind that how the whole-of-society response is integrated will be key.

To answer the question concerning what is the priority or how to go about this process, I refer to establishing a framework or an overarching national strategy that can co-ordinate and bring together the relevant instruments that already exist, because quite a few such relevant instruments are already in place and being implemented, or those instruments we see in future as this space builds out. Some examples to which I alluded in the statement included relevant cyber mechanisms, the establishment of mechanisms to deal with FIMI and economic resilience tools. In this case, when we talk about economic resilience tools, we are talking about strategic investment screening mechanisms, export control regimes and the de-risking or reduction of economic dependencies. This is just to give a small example of the breadth of issues that I think need to be caught within this co-ordinating framework.

Mention was also made of NSAC. To be frank, I do not feel I have done enough analysis in this regard. I do not feel certain this is necessarily the right structure or body for this type of co-ordinating function. It might be, but I do not know. We would probably need to think about this aspect more deeply. The nature of this space might warrant a co-ordinating group or a separate framework to deal specifically with this issue. Alternatively, because we have NSAC already, it might be found that it is the perfect organisation for this type of thinking. I do not have the answer to this question, but we could think about this in more depth if necessary.