Mr. Paul Walsh:

I thank the Deputy. The challenge is that we have seen an explosive growth in this sector. Ireland has positioned itself as a world leader, in a sense, with all the top technological companies, including multinationals, based here. We are now augmenting our hiring needs by bringing in people from outside Ireland to fill some roles. That is working but we also need to focus on the pipeline. That starts at primary and secondary school levels through creating awareness around security. That has a twofold benefit. It helps to attract people into the industry and makes students more aware of protecting themselves from online security risks. That, in turn, can benefit society in general.

We must create more interest in this area in schools and call out the opportunities that exist in cybersecurity because it is a broad sector with many different aspects. This rewarding and challenging area offers young people tremendous opportunities to have fulfilling careers. We should create more graduates with cybersecurity expertise, more masters programmes and more research and development. There are some top-class research teams in the country, both in industry and academia. We should try to connect these organisations to focus on research projects that create more security for companies, organisations and the State. The situation is not going to change quickly but we must put a focused effort on making it more attractive. Computer science as a subject in the leaving certificate is critical, as is creating modules around cybersecurity in all software development courses in universities. That will help. However, there needs to be more of a focus on creating more opportunities and programmes in addition to what we have today.