Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael)
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That was a very interesting exchange between the Cathaoirleach, as a former foreign Minister, and Professor Laffan. I welcome our guests, Professor Laffan in particular. I attended lectures of hers in the past and, I hope, learned a little from them. If I did not, it was not her fault. They were very interesting and good.

I welcome our two other guests as well, obviously.

We now have a vote in the Seanad. I will maybe go on a minute or two and then I will leave. As I am a Whip in the Seanad, it would be bad practice if I were to miss the vote.

On the opportunistic dimension, the HSE was a great example of a cyberattack and cost the State €90 million. A year or so ago I met a person I know and asked him what he was doing, and he said he had got a job in the Central Bank. He was in charge of trying to head off cyberattacks. I do not know if any of the witnesses are able to comment as to how capable we are of having people like that in the various sectors of our Civil Service etc. Have we got that kind of expertise, and are such staff armed properly, if that is the right word, to do this? Can we spend money on preventing such attacks within our Civil Service and State apparatus?

I would be interested in Professor Laffan's view as to whether the enlargement of the EU to include Ukraine, Montenegro, Georgia and Moldova would be helpful - I think it would - in the context of disinformation in that they might assist. It would be good to have them on board in the whole exercise.

Would the witnesses agree that Brexit was a very good example of disinformation in the UK? It was an example close to us. Putative President Hillary Clinton was on the television recently saying she attributes her non-election to Putin's interference. Was that another example?

It is good that we are joining the cyberdefence at EU level and that we would look to Finland as a model. The debunking thing is interesting in that we should have that done in schools, but it would want to be part of teacher education at primary and secondary level, as Dr. Culloty said.

I would be interested in the witnesses' comments on some of those matters but I must leave because I have to show some level of example.