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

The programme budget for cybersecurity in my Department's Vote for 2022 is €5.1 million. That is broken down into €2.5 million in current expenditure and €2.6 million in capital expenditure. While this is the same funding allocation as 2021, it represents a trebling of the budget when compared with 2020.

In addition, provision has been made in the Department's Estimate for 2022 for a year-on-year increase in the payroll and administration of the National Cyber Security Centre, NCSC, in the sum of €2.5 million, €2.1 million of which is for pay and €400,000 is for non-pay administrative overheads. The increased pay allocation is in recognition of the Government's decision last July to expand the capacity of the NCSC with an additional 20 posts, which are to be filled before the end of this year.

Strengthening the NCSC is a key component of our strategy. In the past year, we commissioned a capacity review to benchmark the NCSC against its counterparts in European and other states. The consultants noted the knowledge, expertise and motivation of the NCSC's staff, which was apparent in their exemplary response to the HSE incident last May. The Government has accepted the recommendations in the capacity review and invested in increased capacity in a number of ways, including the appointment of a new director of the NCSC and a number of other new staff, new threat intelligence contracts and a new contract with the UCD Centre for Cybersecurity and Cybercrime Investigation. The NCSC has completed a national risk assessment of critical infrastructure to ensure that it has a thorough understanding of critical national infrastructure and has contact channels with all operators.

The Deputy will not be surprised to hear me say that this matter is of particular importance this morning. Given what is happening in the world, we should all be concerned about our security. Our systems are on heightened alert and are working with European and other colleagues to ensure that we are fully apprised of risks or threats. At the moment, the risk to our country is low to moderate, but the possible knock-on effects of what is happening elsewhere are something about which we must be vigilant. We are being so.

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