Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

Two members of the Defence Forces and two members of An Garda Síochána with expertise in this area are part of a committee which is led by the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources. This is an issue I raised very soon after my ministerial appointment. As chairman of the Government task force on emergency planning, I have briefed the committee on issues relating to possible cyber attacks and related issues. The challenges for cyber defence fall into two areas, namely, prevention and the response to emergencies or incidents arising from cyber attacks or systems failures. Activity is taking place across several Departments and agencies in an effort to guard against systems failure.

The Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources is the central Department in dealing with this issue. We have already had cases of cyber attacks in this State, including an organised attack on the website of the Department of Justice and Equality in the context of an inordinately large numbers of individuals seeking simultaneously to access the site, resulting in problems which persisted for several hours. Counter action has been taken to address this and it is my understanding that a second subsequent attempt to disrupt the site proved unsuccessful. As I said, work in this area comes under the centralised remit of the Minister, Deputy Pat Rabbitte's, Department and the Government task force will be kept informed of progress in this regard. It is an issue in which I have a particular interest, even though the Department of Justice and Equality is not engaged centrally on the technical aspects of the work.

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