Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Along with the Cathaoirleach and the Leader, I welcome the Polish ambassador to our Chamber and recognise the great generosity of the people of Poland to those who are fleeing Putin's war in Ukraine and the contribution of Polish people in Ireland. The ambassador's first trip outside of Dublin following her appointment was to Gorey where we have a very active Polish association. An enormous contribution is made by Polish people where I live and, indeed, throughout the country.

I apologise for the absence of the deputy Leader, my party leader, Senator Chambers, who is organising a very successful women's health conference that the Leader acknowledged yesterday. We all wish her well in that.

Yesterday, the Minister for Education signed the statutory instrument that gave students a seat on the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, NCCA. The president of the Irish Second Level Students Union, which has campaigned actively for that recognition, will be a member of the NCCA. This action by the Minister, Deputy Foley, shows how the Minister and the Government put students at the heart of the education process. It is very welcome.

I hope that we have a debate on the recently announced leaving certificate reforms which also put the students at the heart of the process. I ask for an update from the Minister on that. I hope we also have a debate on the role of students and young people within our education system. They have contributed enormously during the pandemic. We have talked about the impact the pandemic has had on young people. A debate on that subject would be very welcome.

PwC has published a global economic and fraud survey which found that cybercrime has overtaken customer fraud as the most common type of fraud that is experienced by companies. As we saw during the pandemic, there has been a rise in phishing and ransomware. I have regularly talked in this House about the challenges around cybercrime. We saw the cyberattack that took place on the HSE. We will see many more of those cyberattacks.

I continue to have concern, even though great work is being done by the National Cyber Security Centre, that we are not sufficiently prepared for some of the attacks we are likely to see. We are not dealing sufficiently well with phishing, cyber-extortion, identity theft or data breaches. I hope that we would have a debate on that.

This is poetry day Ireland. It is appropriate that we celebrate our Irish poets. We are rightly proud in this country of the contribution of poetry. I tried to think of a quotation for a little bit of inspiration for us here in this Chamber, and if the Cathaoirleach will indulge me-----