Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday afternoon, the Joint Committee on Transport and Communications had a most interesting engagement with the university and further education and training sectors, as well as indigenous software developers in cybersecurity. One of the key asks which came from that engagement was from the chairman of Cyber Ireland, Mr. Pat Larkin. Mr. Larkin looked for the State to ring-fence €1 billion for cyber training and education. It was a rather limited ask, given the seriousness of the damage which can be done by a cyberattack in this country, or to any country. We read yesterday in the Irish Independent how €16 million was paid out by Irish citizens for scams in the past 12 months. We know 75% of SMEs have had a cyberattack at some stage or other in 2022.

The cybercriminal industry is now more lucrative than the drugs industry, and it is cleaner, because the people who are engaged in cybercriminality do not have to go out on the streets to sell anything. By the way, there is a misconception out there that they are all highly skilled information technology, IT people. They are not. By and large, hackers just have to get lucky once. We have to be lucky all the time. We should have a debate in this House on cyber and where we are going in cyber in this country, and I would ask the Acting Leader to try and arrange that.