Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)
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I thank the committee for taking an interest in this. I am dealing with my European counterparts at a ministers' Council meeting. I also met digital ministers in Luxembourg last month and travelled to Estonia to meet people from outside the EU. While it is important we work closely with our European partners, we need also to co-operate with countries outside the EU that share our values. Some of those countries employ many people in Ireland and have very advanced ICT defence systems. We cannot retreat to a fortress Europe, but it is important that we have a degree of independence and sovereignty, that we can provide for ourselves digitally and that we continue to co-operate with other countries that share our values.