Michael McCarthy (Labour)

Yesterday I spoke in support of this amendment. The Bill contains a strong provision to punish people who are guilty of offences such as damaging machines and so forth. However, this is a good amendment. Senator Quinn is specific about the type of damage that could be inflicted on the system.

Over recent years, it has become evident that there is a sophisticated degree of knowledge and expertise in this area among lay people. Recently there were reports about a young guy in Germany who designed a worm that affected computer systems. It had a catastrophic effect. The reason he did it was to give his mother's business, which obviously was involved in remedying these situations, a temporary boost. That might be different from what we discussing here but we are living in an age in which some people have no regard for life, let alone democracy.

In recent years we have witnessed some horrific terrorist atrocities. What if somebody has a malicious intent to interfere with the software in this system to produce an inaccurate result or, more maliciously, to affect the result in a way that favours a political belief? The consequences are unthinkable. We must be specific about the punishments to be applied for breaking the law in this regard. I appeal to the Minister to consider this amendment favourably and to take account of the mind of the dangerous law breaking individual who has a sinister motivation and the expertise to interfere with the software in the system. That is a possibility we cannot rule out or ignore. There is provision to deal with damage to the machines but we must take it a step further and accept this amendment.