Willie O'Dea (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)

I agree with Deputy O'Shea about the possible devastating impact of such an attack. Considerable discussion has taken place on who should be the lead Department in this regard and after due consideration it was decided that the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources should be the lead Department. I do not have time to go into all the factors that led to that conclusion but in the event of a cyber attack or a threatened cyber attack I, as chairman of the emergency planning committee, would convene a meeting of the committee. The Department of Defence would chair that operation but we will be depending on the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources to co-ordinate the response across the different Departments.

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