Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. I thought I said that we might reflect on what was being said. Last time, I had about one and a half minutes to speak but clearly it was an impactful one and a half or thereabouts two minutes. I thank the Minister of State for taking it on board. I felt that the phrase “high-risk” was insulting. It was inappropriate in legislation. While we all want to make sure our networks are safe and our components within the networks are safe and so on, I did not think it was the right phraseology to use. Clearly, the Minister of State and his officials took that on board and I thank them for that.

The terminology “relevant” in almost all of the changes and “certain”, used I think on two occasions instead, is more tempered, measured language. It takes out any of that kind of inflammatory language that might have been perceived, more than anything else, by people. I appreciate that the Minister of State did that. This legislation is better legislation for having that language in it. I am not doing a Second Stage debate. We discussed a very comprehensive piece of legislation last week, including the digital, An Post and consumer stuff. In addition, vendors or the suppliers of components or the parts of a network that may be perceived to be at risk were addressed. I welcome the Minister of State’s contribution on that.