Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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Question 576: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food the equipment and data that was lost or stolen from his Department in the past 12 months; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [46658/08]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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The number of Department owned laptops or other data devices, such as Blackberries and memory keys, reported lost or stolen from my Department in 2008 are set out in the following table:

When a device, such as a laptop or Blackberry, is reported lost or stolen, access by that device to the Department's computer network is immediately suspended and use of the device is blocked. In all cases where devices were reported stolen the theft was reported to the Gardaí. To date, no data concerning members of the public has been compromised. All laptops are protected by use of a user-id and password. The Department has commenced a programme of encrypting all laptops used by its staff.