Mr. Pat Larkin:

Who would fund it is probably a bigger question. As cyber has a societal impact, the challenge is if it sits within the Department of Education or the Department with responsibility for communications, etc., we are reinforcing the fragmented nature of the approach.

More generally, because cybersecurity is a national security question as much as it is a national economic opportunity, there is possibly an argument that it should sit at an overall co-ordinated Government level, such as under the Department of the Taoiseach. It impacts on all facets of government and all facets of society. There might then be a consolidation of funding streams under one such role. Our argument would be that although there are a number of discrete asks, such as €40 million for this and that, we have to think really big in terms of the scale of both the challenge and the opportunity we are facing. The threat is to Ireland Inc. We need to consider ring-fencing perhaps €1 billion over the next seven years for all these programmes. Again, that might be delivered by way of the Department of the Taoiseach co-ordinating various funding streams.

We must think big. All the input we have provided today reflects what we have seen over the past three to five years. We have yet to see the impact of artificial intelligence on the threat landscape, and it is going to be phenomenal. There is a gap right now. Already, the cybercrime economy is larger than the illicit drugs economy. Cybercrime is the third largest economy in the world. Its growth is outstripping the growth of the cybersecurity industry response. It is growing compound at approximately 15%, whereas the cybersecurity market is growing at 12%. There is a huge dichotomy there. If we consider the potential impact of something like artificial intelligence on the attacker side, there is potential for the cybercrime economy to become the largest economy in the world over time. We have to think really big and really bold in terms of the co-ordination and funding needed to deal with it.