Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

On the issue of weapons passing through our sky, until such a time as we have an airforce that can intercept and interdict we can do sweet damn all about it. Talking about it is of little value, action is what is needed.

The Leader will know that I have spent quite a lot of the period of this Seanad working in the area of cybersecurity. I brought a number of delegations to Talinn in Estonia where we were shown the best of the best by NATO's Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, CCDCOE, and CR14, which is another NATO training centre. This had led to the establishment of two security operating centres with one located in Dundalk and one in a co-laboratory in Blanchardstown. There is also a cyber awareness programme in Limerick ETB.

I am delighted to inform the House that we sought funding for a cross-Border initiative through the PEACEPLUS programme and CyberQuest has been awarded €8.5 million over the next five years to bring cyber and IT skills to 2,000 participants, many of whom are outside of the education and employment areas. This is a really good initiative to bring young people, who to all intents and purposes have been disaffected, into a vibrant career.

I also congratulate Enterprise Ireland on its cyber initiative to establish a grant of €3,000 to allow companies to assess their cyber security systems. In addition, Enterprise Ireland has laid on €60,000, which is up to 80% of the cost of bringing cyber awareness and cyber security programmes up to speed within organisations.

We really have to wake up to the cyber threat that exists in the world and it is not all bad actors of countries. Some of it is just people operating out of their bedrooms.

The bottom line is that the network and information systems 2, NIS2, directive, is coming. So unless we do something about it we will be found once again caught.