Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South-Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge the important work the Department is doing and wish you the best of luck with it. The aim of a session like this is for us to ask questions. Dr. Stanley has said the strategy will be published after the consultation and all the work is finished, so I am not totally clear on what questions she can or cannot answer. I certainly agree this needs to be an area of significant priority. When we consider our defence and security, we need to analyse them through the prism of what is most relevant to us in the circumstances we are in. We are an island nation with a very substantial coastline and there is a great deal of communications infrastructure off our coast.

The strategy needs to balance policy and outlining the protocols and the appropriate responses and resources in terms of our naval capacity, but also, perhaps, in other respects. Does Dr. Stanley have a sense of where there is a gap in our policy and protocols, or is it primarily an issue of resources that we need to consider?