Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank members and witnesses. The next slot is mine. I am conscious that we are not the education committee of the Oireachtas. This committee deals with matters relating to transport and communications. As such, it has responsibility for how we deal with cybercrime. I was struck by the figures that were referenced in terms of the size of cybercrime in economic terms. From a regulatory and legislative perspective, I am looking at where we are and where we need to be. We need academia. We need to train people. However, we also need to educate people. In particular, I refer to the non-digital natives, such as older people, who now have smartphones. They see a text and think they must respond to it. They are of a time when you saw a missed call you would ring back. If you got a text, you would click on the link. I do not think they are naive, but they are more trusting than people who are younger and who just know it is a scam. They will say, "Why would they send me that?" It is because they want people's money. How do we educate those to whom I refer?

There are people who are taking courses. Obviously, we need a lot more people to do so. We also need more people to become involved in the industry. It is not so much a matter of whether we can afford to spend the money; it is a matter of whether we can afford not to spend the money. That is my takeaway from today. We would love not to. It is a bit like the area of defence. We do not really want to have to spend loads of money on it, but the alternative can be an awful lot worse.

This matter may be for Mr. Larkin, as opposed to the overall, overarching organisation. Where are we as a country? Where do we need to go? We had discussions around the time of the cyberattack on the HSE regarding where we were with even the salaries of people who were going into the sector and how competitive or not public sector salaries were vis-à-vis the private sector. I am sure Microsoft, Vodafone, Facebook, eBay, PayPal and all the other companies are paying enormous amounts of money because they cannot afford not to. A breakdown in their services would give rise to major losses of revenue, etc. We as a country will be spending money on training people up, and that is fair enough. However, I am more interested in knowing about what the State needs to do to ramp up educating the entire population to be familiar with and cognisant of this. I just got an email from WeTransfer. I think it is completely legitimate, but it contains an .mp4 file. I am wondering whether I want to download it. There are probably all kinds of filters in the Oireachtas that will mean it will be okay, but I would have thought that the HSE had those filters. In that case, clearly something happened and somebody got in somehow. Obviously, there is so much money to be made if you get it right with the ransomware stuff. Equally, I do not think anybody factors in how much of the 113,000 people who might start suing because their medical records are online, as well as the cost of that.

What does the State need to do to educate everybody? I am interested in Mr. Larkin's perspective initially, as well as those of the representatives from academia and Mr. Umit Ugyur. Where do we need to go?