Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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467. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the role of his Department in responding to a cyber emergency and protecting the democratic process here from international hacking events. [24369/17]

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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To date, the primary focus of the Cyber Security function in my Department, the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), has been in assisting Government Departments and Agencies to secure their networks and information, and to begin the process of transposing the EU Network and Information Security Directive. The NCSC has at present no role in actively preventing attacks on private sector entities, not least because this would require active surveillance of network activity, something for which there is no legislative basis, and which would pose a number of data protection and other challenges.  

The NCSC has become the national point of contact for cyber security matters, and receives notice of suspicious activity of networks in Ireland from similar bodies in other jurisdictions, and from the cyber security sector. In cases where this activity involves private sector operators, and where possible, the NCSC contacts them directly and warns them of issues arising, and of steps that might be taken to mitigate risks to their systems or data. If notice was received of activity around the networks of a political party, the same procedure would be followed.