Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I will answer this as the NCSC has come under my remit in the recent past.

The first question was about the capacity review. My colleague, the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, ordered a capacity review at the start of the year. Following a competitive tender that was awarded to FireEye, which is one of the most reputed cybersecurity firms in the world. Since that time, it has been examining on a comparative basis how the NCSC matches up with other similar bodies around the world. The company will produce recommendations about how it should be changed or restructured or what the salaries and positions should be. I understand that there is a draft of the review, and that it is likely to be finished in the coming weeks. Clearly, when I get to review it, that will be in the light of recent events, which would clearly colour anybody’s view of what the outcome should be.

Regarding the Oireachtas committee, the Deputy will understand that in the middle of a crisis event when an incident response team is on the ground trying to sort out problems that are causing knock-on effects for patient health, the staff are probably not going to be available to answer questions for a long period. In the same way that firemen would not answer questions about the cause of a fire until the incident was over, I am sure they would be delighted to come in before a committee and answer in detail all the Deputy's questions.

Did the Deputy have any other question?

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