Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Go raibh maith agat to Mr. McNamara and Dr. Fitzsimmons. I thank them very much for coming in. I am sorry - I had to speak in the Dáil and then I had made an arrangement with the Irish Wheelchair Association. I agree with what was said earlier; the witnesses were very direct and straight about the points they made. I imagine much of what I was going to ask has been asked. There is an acceptance; Finland is obviously in a different place. Mr. McNamara spoke about that whole Nordic, Baltic part of the world, where they see things very differently. The Finns cannot but see things through the prism of the Winter War, etc., and Ukraine has changed the geopolitical setup, undoubtedly.

There was an element of status quohere, which perhaps meant, to a degree, that people could be rather relaxed about what we considered security and defence.I think everyone accepts the dangers in the modern world, such as hybrid and cyber. We all know the difficulty regarding cyber-to-physical, which can be an almost nightmare scenario. We are aware of our geographic setup and the tech sector, a huge amount of which is centred here. It means those data communication lines are absolutely necessary for the continuity of western economies across the board.

I think Mr. McNamara also hit the nail on the head regarding our Defence Forces and the need for transparency regarding the RAF. We have not done the necessary work and do not have the resources, for example, there are issues in recruitment and retention and beyond that, we know we do not have the equipment. As much as we are all aware and welcome that there has been an element of review, there must be a review of the entirety of the Irish Defence Forces and what capacity it needs from a perspective of what we need to do, particularly regarding our waters and our skies. We must have that real-world conversation. The Irish people have not moved greatly in that while they welcome that we are seen as a fair player, non-alignment has suited us in that regard. We all know our history and the bright shining light we are to a working peace process. I understand the point on Britain; it is probably not terminology I would use, given our recent history, but I get the geopolitical point.

When we talk about cyber, it concerns hybrid and threats.

We are talking about non-alignment but we are in the European Union. We obviously see ourselves in a lot of international setups as generally being on the right side. Sometimes we are at variance with our European partners. I am not only referring to Ukraine but also Palestine and other such conflicts.

The major point that needs to be made is we need to get our own house in order. We need to make sure that is our primary focus. Beyond that, that does not stop any element of co-operation. If we are talking about cyber, we obviously have a huge amount of resources here in the sense of institutes or our level of expertise. The HSE attack showed we were found wanting. I am not giving out about a particular attack, but the fact we further resourced the National Cyber Security Centre, NCSC, and everything else was an acceptance we were not where we needed to be before that point.

I can probably guess what the answer to my question will be. From our point of view, what can we do to maintain as much as possible the element of non-alignment that gives us a certain element of leaving us in a worthwhile position to be a fair player on an international basis while at same time dealing with the obvious threats? Obviously, dealing with our capacity issues is first and foremost, but beyond that what can we do?