Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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My Department has had significant engagement with industry in the development of resilience and emergency response, primarily via the establishment of the Telecommunications Response and Resilience Group (T-RRG). Cooperation and coordination between industry and Government via the Group will improve sectoral preparedness for, and response to severe weather incidences. For example, to:

• improve the physical and power resilience of networks
• coordinate and communicate more effectively during emergencies
• prioritise key infrastructure to provide minimum levels of connectivity during emergencies

The fixed and mobile networks are fully liberalised and privatised and operate in a competitive market. My Department does not have any current plans to invest in their network resilience. However, operators have independently assessed their preparedness and committed to a variety of network-specific measures, including:

• Reviewing the power requirements of sites
• Acquiring additional back up battery and generator capacity
• Preventative network maintenance
• Enhancing redundancy with back-up routes to their core networks
• Accelerating the use of satellites to provide additional resilience

Operators have identified key locations in their mobile networks which they advise will provide a basic layer of service for voice and text to the broadest possible area if backup power is maintained during a power outage. Operators have committed to development of resilience measures for these sites and to prioritise them during restoration where possible. My Department is engaging with State and semi-State colleagues to seek their support to enhance the resilience and restoration of these locations.

My Department is continuing to work with industry and colleagues across Government to identify and address coordination gaps between telecommunications operators and operational State response to severe weather incidences – effective management of access paths and roadside vegetation during recovery is key to speeding restoration of connectivity.

My Department continues to work with the Commission for Communications Regulation (ComReg) to improve their regulation of outage information and incident reporting within the telecommunications sector.

My Department has liaised with the Department of Justice, Home Affairs and Migration for provisions to be included in the draft National Cyber Security Bill which would amend both the Communications Regulation Act, 2002 and Communications Regulation and Digital Hub Development Agency (Amendment) Act 2023 to ensure that my existing powers in relation to resilience and information gathering during incidences are retained and enhanced.

Other provisions in the forthcoming National Cyber Security Bill, which transposes the Network and Information Security Directive (NIS2), will bring further positive changes to network resilience requirements. ComReg has been designated as the National Competent Authority for both CER and NIS2 as they apply to critical entities in the Digital Infrastructure sector.