John Lyons (Dublin North West, Labour)
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18. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the progress to date in tackling cyber-crime; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19068/14]

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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With regard to the role of my Department and An Garda Síochána, I can inform the Deputy that significant steps have been undertaken in this area.

The Government Legislation Programme includes a Criminal Justice Bill which will, inter alia, transpose the EU Directive on attacks against information systems. The Bill will create a range of offences relating to information systems and data, including illegally accessing a system, interference with systems or data and illegal interception of data.

The Bill is at an advanced stage of preparation and I would hope to publish it in the autumn. Enactment of this legislation will also be the last legislative measure necessary to enable Ireland to ratify the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime.

With regard to the investigation of cybercrime, I am informed that the strategy of An Garda Síochána in this regard focuses on prevention, detection and training.

The Computer Crime Investigation Unit (CCIU) of the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation is the primary Garda unit responsible for investigating computer crime in Ireland. The Unit also provides expert assistance to Senior Investigating Officers and Investigation Teams tasked with the investigation of this type of criminality on a District and Divisional basis.

Members of the CCIU also provide warnings to the public in relation to various types of cybercrime, including Computer viruses, Denial-of-service attacks, Malware, Fraud and identity theft and Phishing scams. The CCIU is also represented on the Irish Payment Card Service Organisation and the Irish Banking Federation High Tech Crime Forum.

A member of the CCIU is on full time secondment with Ireland's Computer Emergency Response Team. The role of the Response Team, which was established under the auspices of the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources as part of a series of initiatives to deal with the general issue of cybersecurity, is to prepare and manage cyber incidents in conjunction with relevant stakeholders.

I can also inform the Deputy that members of the CCIU continue to be trained in the techniques necessary to counter cybercrime including in the area of cyber forensic examination.

An Garda Síochána also regularly liaise with Interpol, Europol and the European Centre for Cyber Crime which was established in 2013 under the auspices of Europol.

Within my own Department, the Office for Internet Safety has oversight of Hotline.ie, the confidential service that receives reports of suspected illegal content on the internet and, where appropriate, arranges to have such content removed.

Finally, the Deputy may also be interested to know that Ireland also participates in the Global Alliance Against Child Sexual Abuse Online which provides for shared policy targets, operational goals and specific actions identified by the participating countries.