Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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3. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform when he expects the mission critical communications system to be fully operational; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [60174/25]

Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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My question today is about how we can strengthen our national resilience against future storms in the wake of Storm Éowyn and how new technologies can be used to better protect our communities. I want to ask the Minister of State when she expects the mission critical communications system to be fully operation and will she make a statement on the matter.

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for this question. I am pleased to advise that officials are actively discussing the launch of the Irish component of the EU critical communications system with the European Commission with a view to Ireland becoming an early adopter of this.

I hope the Deputy will be pleased to know that six weeks ago Government launched a new mission critical communications system that was built by Vodafone in partnership with the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer. It has been set up to be able to help emergency services, such as An Garda Síochána, the Fire Service, the National Ambulance Service, the Coast Guard, Civil Defence, to be able to communicate and co-ordinate effectively through more resilient challenges.

The Deputy mentioned Storm Éowyn. I suppose that identified communities, in particular, rural communities, and especially the island communities, which were vulnerable in a situation where our already resilient systems unfortunately were unable to perform because of power failure.

The mission critical communications system, which was under the EU resilience fund, was built as a system of systems to be able to make sure that our lines are fully resilient. We tested it in September. That happened in Westport. Both I and the Minister, Deputy Chambers, were delighted to be able to join emergency services' colleagues not only from Ireland but from across the EU, who together ran a live testing. It was a maritime scenario where they looked at a Coast Guard vessel that was five miles offshore and they were able to make sure they were able to receive real-time video streaming from an aircraft. This was done using satellite technology. It was done using satellite-enabled links that are designed to provide communication connectivity even if terrestrial networks fail.

It was successfully trialled. It is part of the broader European critical communications system. I can give the Deputy more information in my next contribution.

Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State. It is good to hear that it has been trialled and it is getting up and running. This system will build greater resilience in our emergency communications. As the Minister of State said, it is kind of a system of systems so it gives us a last resort in terms of response.

I referred to Storm Éowyn. We all know that storms are getting worse. All the weather records show that. Storm Éowyn is out on its own in terms of the impact on the west of Ireland and I suppose we are all so cognisant of the importance of communications during serious storms like that. Elderly and vulnerable members of the community were left without power but even longer without communications. We will be looking at that issue in the climate committee soon.

In terms of rolling out to community first responders, are they on the list? As the Minister of State will probably be aware, the National Ambulance Service co-ordinates a network of community first responders who are volunteers, who can do CPR, who can do defib and provide other services. It strikes me that they could be a good group to benefit from this in an emergency or a storm situation.

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for that feedback. I will double-check but it is my understanding that they would well be able to use it. I met with members of the Civil Defence based in Mayo who were already part of that active trial and it is great to see that the community initiatives are also built into it.

For the Deputy's information, the European Commission is proposing to bring in legislation next year that will formulate that entire system. It is likely that will happen during the Irish EU Presidency. That will give us a great opportunity to influence this. Ireland will then co-ordinate with the European Commission to agree a date to have its sub-system in place. Components of the Irish system have already been deployed in recent years as part of the recovery and resilience facility project 2.5 and the remaining components will be installed to meet whatever timeline is ultimately agreed with the European Commission. As I said, that is likely to happen on our watch, during the EU Presidency.

Naoise Ó Muirí (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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It is positive that we can have an influence on that while we hold the Presidency of the Council. It is good to hear about Westport. Storm Éowyn was a west of Ireland problem in the main and testing the system off the west coast in Westport was a positive development. It would be great to keep the plan moving. We will no doubt hear more about it in due course in the context of the EU Presidency underpinning further work. I thank the Minister of State.

Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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Absolutely. It was fantastic to meet public health nurses from the HSE who advised that they had clients in rural island communities who were badly impacted by people's inability to communicate directly with emergency services or the ability of emergency services to co-ordinate. That is what this initiative will help to resolve.

Any systems deployed for the emergency services have strict requirements for both bandwidth and latency. That is to ensure the highest level of service is always achieved. From the time a radio call button is pressed by a garda anywhere in the country to when it is complete, it is less than 300 milliseconds. That is kind of critical component of infrastructure we are talking about.

To test the full capabilities of the 5G standards, the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer built a private 5G network core that implements the most recent standards for which the public protection and disaster relief, PPDR, services are deployed and tested. Those standards became known as mission critical communications. They will provide an equivalent feature set to that seen on the Trans-European Trunked Radio, TETRA, networks, for example, push-and-talk functionality in emergency situations.