Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

-----or a KGB or Mossad. It is something that is being considered by the commission, and if it recommends it, we will certainly give it detailed consideration, but we would need to weigh up the pros and cons. I do not think it is necessarily or naturally the case that just because other countries have it, we should have it too.

In terms of Syria, the Government unequivocally condemns the use of chemical weapons and biological weapons by anyone anywhere in the world. What we see in Syria is a conflict going on for seven or eight years that has caused enormous distress and hardship for people in Syria. It has caused a humanitarian crisis. It also caused the refugee crisis which has impacted on other countries. Syria was a middle income country with a relatively high standard of living. It is very sad to see a country go so far backwards so quickly. I have had the opportunity to meet some of the Syrians who have come to live in Ireland as part of the refugee programme and to hear a little bit about their lives.

I met some of them when they came to the airport at Baldonnel a few weeks ago with the Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy McEntee. When one talks to them it makes any problems one has pale into insignificance. We very much condemn the abuse of human rights and the denial of democracy by the Assad regime in Syria. We understand that the UK-US-France action was targeted at chemical facilities and that prior warning was given, as a result of which there were no civilian casualties. Ireland was not consulted about the operation in advance and our approval was neither sought nor given. We stand by the EU statement, agreed by foreign Ministers this week, that there is no military solution to the conflict in Syria. The intervention by outside powers, whether European powers, America, Iran, Turkey or Russia, will not bring this conflict to an end. What is required is a ceasefire and a peace process. We support that and are willing to assist in any way we can. We have troops with UNDOF in the Golan Heights, which is on Syrian territory, and in south Lebanon, so the Irish Government has an interest in the region. We want to support any peace process that might take place. Deputies will be aware that the current structure of the United Nations, which gives Russia and other countries veto powers, means the UN is largely paralysed in the context of acting in Syria, and that is a real difficulty.

I assure Deputies that we regularly challenge the Israeli Government and its diplomats about the occupation of Palestinian territories. The difference between what happened as regards the protests in Israel and Palestine and what happened in Salisbury is that the latter was an attack on EU soil and the violation of the sovereignty of an EU state.

I am happy with where we stand in respect of cyber attacks at the moment, though there is always room for improvement. I recently met the head of the National Cyber Security Centre, which is based in UCD and which we have been building up for a number of years. It is doing a good job in monitoring the situation and in preventing attacks, but it is having some difficulty recruiting specialists with the skills that are needed in this area. We will need to beef it up in the years ahead because cyber attacks will be a feature of security in years to come. The WannaCry attack did a lot of damage to the NHS but did not do a lot of damage to the IT systems in the HSE because it was more prepared to deal with the attacks than the NHS. That is not often the case but it was the case on this occasion.

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