Sinéad Gibney (Dublin Rathdown, Social Democrats)
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1236. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills whether her Department has a policy or goal of better insourcing of IT requirements and needs of the Department for better cybersecurity, autonomy, and crisis management; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [43675/25]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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My Department does not have a policy or a goal with regard to the in-sourcing of IT requirements.

My Department’s CIO division provides digital and ICT services to my Department, as a shared service to DFHERIS and facilitates wider shared service provision to the sector.

ICT and digital are pivotal to the delivery of education and training, research and innovation and related support services across the sector.

Civil servants, external contractors and service providers who have the necessary technical expertise and equipment deliver my Department's ICT services.

My Department's cyber security defences are supported by the work of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and the national computer security incident response team, CSIRT, which provides early warnings, alerts, announcements and dissemination of information about risks and incidents to my Department.

My Department has previously been advised by the NCSC that, for security reasons, not to disclose details of its cyber security operations which could in any way compromise the Department’s information security posture.

In particular, it is not considered appropriate to disclose any information, which might assist malicious actors to identify potential vulnerabilities.