Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I want to thank the Estonian ambassador, H.E. Kairi Künka, who set up a visit for me two weeks ago to a number of interesting cybersecurity places in Tallinn for the Louth Meath Education and Training Board to go out and see how a cybersecurity centre of excellence actually operates. With that in mind, I want to thank the NATO centre which brought us in and showed us its system. CR14 brought us in and showed us its system. I also thank CybExer and the Tallinn University of Technology.What we saw was out of this world and only showed me that we are light years behind a tiny little country such as Estonia. Sadly, because of other commitments I was not around to engage with the Minister, Deputy Coveney, on defence issues. I agree with my colleague Deputy Berry that we are a defenceless nation. We have so much data coming through our economic zone in the Atlantic and who is responsible for it? It is the Garda. The Garda does not go to sea. We do not have a Naval Service that is capable of monitoring what is going on. We do not have an Air Corps that is capable of monitoring what is going on. We are, for all intents and purposes, the talk of Europe with our failure to defend not only ourselves but the assets of the European Union that come through our economic zone.

We also have a situation where soldiers are walking out. My colleague, Senator Buttimer, is aware that an entire class of Naval Service apprentices has been bought out and they have gone to work for a private company. This could not happen if we were paying people correctly. A simple thing that could have been sorted out months, if not years, ago is the working time directive. People are sitting on their hands doing absolutely nothing about it and we are slowly watching our entire force implode. It has to stop.

We have to start taking a serious approach to our defence. What will happen is the foreign direct investment we are so proud of, and rightly so, will walk out of this country when there is a serious attack one day. If any one of them is hit and it is found to be our problem, they will walk out of this country and it will devastate places such as my home county. I know how hard the acting leader works in Galway visiting places and making sure resources are made available. We have to step up to the plate on defence. The Garda cannot protect cables under the sea. We speak about the data being in the cloud. The cloud is actually under the sea and that is the truth of the matter. Unless we wake up and start taking care of the assets that are keeping this country front and centre we will lose all of this.