Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Two years before the HSE was hit the NHS in the UK was taken down and nothing was done in this country to check our systems to make sure we would be robust enough in the event of an attack. The document given to the Minister of State by the Department today reads well. It reads as well as the strategy document but I am afraid the Department should read what was said at the last meeting we had with people in the cyberindustry to see what they had to say. They condemned everything about our cybersecurity. I ask the Minister of State to bring this back to the Taoiseach and the Government. We need to move the area of cybersecurity into the Department of the Taoiseach, the Department of Defence or the Department of Justice where it will get the proper support, and we need to do it urgently. We need to engage with the industry and listen to what it has to say. Those in the industry are the experts out there fighting crime every day. The cost to this economy of cybercrime runs to billions of euro. It is now more profitable than the drugs industry, and that is frightening.