Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South-Central, Sinn Fein)

Addressing this in a way that is sustainable will require some current spending as well as capital spending and I might come back to that in my last contribution. The threats that are potentially faced are multiple. There are obviously the traditional issues that the Defence Forces faced in ensuring the protection of Irish waters in a fishing and general sort of sense but also as regards the issue of the undersea cables. I understand more than 95% of international data and voice transfers are routed through undersea fibre-optic cables. When you combine that with Ireland's particular situation in terms of the technology industry and the clustering of the tech businesses in Ireland, it makes Ireland particularly vulnerable. There is also the issue of an increasing number of shadow ships and so on coming into Irish waters. The Defence Forces have dealt with this appropriately but ensuring they have the capacity to continue doing so as these threats potentially increase is going to be crucially important. There is also the issue of the full radar picture which needs to be addressed from a capital funding point of view.

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