Aidan Davitt (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I ask the Leader to invite the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality to the House to respond to serious concerns about the number of gardaí working in cybercrime. In 2012, in the depths of the recession, one quarter of all organisations in the State, ranging from charities and sports clubs to businesses, reported suffering a cyber-attack. At that time, 31 gardaí were working in the area of cybercrime. A recent survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that 44% of organisations in Ireland had been the victims of cyber-attacks in the past two years. Garda numbers decreased by 10% in the same period. Of those affected, one in five lost between €92,000 and €4.6 million. Cybercrime is a major problem and a serious concern for any organisation that uses the Internet.

I recently dealt with a constituent whose business had €20,000 removed or phished, to use the proper term, from its accounts. Were it not for early detection by the staff and good co-operation among banks, the money would have been lost. The Garda was not notified of this case by the banks. When I queried the reason for this failure, I was informed the Garda does not have sufficient resources to deal with this ongoing problem.

The Taoiseach speaks about having a smart economy for smart people and I agree that this is the direction we should take. He also referred to creating 44,000 jobs in the information and communications technology, ICT, sector by 2018. If we cannot police the Internet highway and if we do not have the capabilities to investigate serious crime, our smart economy will turn into the wild west. This is a serious concern which must be addressed immediately and I would appreciate if the Minister came to the House to discuss it.