Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

To back up what the Minister of State, Deputy Ossian Smyth, said earlier, we very much look forward to the Department and other officials being able to answer a lot of those questions in the course of time, when this immediate emergency response to the incident has passed. I am confident that the capacity review mentioned by the Minister of State will give us a very clear indication of the next steps. My understanding of the draft outline is that it is not looking at radical change. It seeks to further extend our resources but not in a way that fundamentally changes the approach that we are taking.

It is critical to understand that the NCSC has a key role in what has happened, but it is not the only line of defence. In fact, it is not the key line of defence. The key line of defence is every single Department and public agency, every single laptop and every single interaction we take. The Minister for Health mentioned the fact that his Department is spending something like €203 million a year on its IT systems. I could take three other large Departments and add a similar amount to that. For just four Departments we are looking at an investment of more than €400 million in our IT systems, a large part of it relating to IT security. The NCSC has a critical role but it is only an advisory role. Critical analysis and capability is required right across the various agencies of State, in particular within the health system. By their very nature, due to the large expanse of the network of health systems and the large number of people engaged, the urgency of sharing information between doctors, hospitals and so on makes it particularly vulnerable.

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