Mr. Erik O'Donovan:

I will build on some of the points Ms Fitzpatrick made. If we are a digital hub, we need to be a regulatory hub as well. Hence, the need to be prepared for incoming regulations and to have the capacities in place for them. I believe the DPC's 2023 allocation is approximately €26 million. That is nearly 5.5 times greater than its 2016 allocation. This increase is because of the volume of work the DPC has to do. It is essentially a strong regulator in Europe. Research by Amárach and William Fry points to the fact that regulatory capacity is an investment attractor, so it is not just me saying this.

The issues of digital safety and privacy are important, but an issue that we have not touched on is that of cyber. Funding for the National Cyber Security Centre is ramping up, which is good to see. All of these bodies need to be adequately resourced. We would support that. Linking the issue of cyber back to the issue of procurement that the Deputy raised, I believe there were 28 recommendations - do not quote me on this because I could be wrong, but that is the number off the top of my head - in the Cruinniú report on how to stimulate GovTech in procurement. This is the idea that, by digitalising public services, a certain number of SMEs will be involved in providing those services. The recommendations are good, we welcome them and we would encourage their implementation.

According to a study by Cyber Ireland in the cybersecurity sector, it is not just a question of regulatory capacity, but also of using that regulatory capacity to grow jobs or, in other words, to grow competencies and capacities. There are companies that could service this. It would not be easy to do, given that there are state aid rules and the like to be considered, but some of the recommendations that have been made are welcome and we would like to see them being implemented.