Senator Gerard Craughwell- speech from 13 Oct 2022

It's strange, every time you come into the Senate at the order of business something derails your line of thought and Senator Daugherty today has certainly derailed mine. I have a sister who lost two children at full term and I cannot begin to tell you the pain that she has felt in her life at the loss of those children so I would support fully what you're trying to do and my deepest sympathy to the Smiths here. Acting Leader, congratulations on your elevation first and foremost. Secondly, I spent four days in Tallinn in Estonia at the Tallinn Summit which is the lead summit in the area of cyber security and digital security. Firstly, I would say I was rather disappointed that there was no other Irish representative from official Ireland there. We had Prime Ministers there, we had Ministers, we had Senior Civil Servants from all over the world and one of the key topics with everybody I met as an Irishman was Ireland and its lack of defence capability for 95% of the world's data crossing the Atlantic into Europe. We do not know what is going on beneath our sea and it has been the fault of countless governments for running our defence forces into the ground. But then I reviewed the Minister's statement here in the House, I wasn't here for the debate with the Minister and the Minister just does not answer questions. The Minister talks down the clock and that's all the Minister does. And then I open the newspaper and I see that a private security firm has been employed to look at the cables coming into Ireland. Now it is somewhat hard to understand whether we are talking about electric cables, gas pipes or data cables. It does not matter. Are we at the stage now where we are outsourcing the security of the State to some private security company? It is beyond acceptable and for that reason I want to move an amendment of the order of business today to ask for Minister Coveney to come to this House. I don't care if it's 10 o'clock tonight but to come to this House and to explain to the people of Ireland how we have allowed our country to finish up in a situation where our Navy is virtually inoperable, our Air Force we don't have one and we depend on the RAF. I am aware of the fact that my colleagues want to talk about my trip to Qatar and I am quite prepared to give a detailed report next week on that. I think it is a cheap shot. I think it is a cheap shot. But leaving that aside. We had the paid defence forces last week here. Senator Crockwell without interruption please. You know the rules on the order of business. The bottom line on it is what sort of an embarrassment is it for a State that constantly talks about our sovereignty, our neutrality and all the other nonsense we hear about the defence of this State. And we are unable to protect the very lifeblood of data that comes through this country or through the economic zone that we are responsible for. People talk about the cloud as if it was up there. It is not. It is beneath the sea and it is coming in off our west coast. And we don't know what is going on there. We have no idea what was going on there. But remember one thing. In the middle of a war in Ukraine, the Ukrainian government were able to roll out a digital system that allows their citizens access government services. I think it is around about 7,000 services. So humble were the Estonians to that. The leaders in digital technology in the world. So humble were they. At the recent conference they turned around and said they hoped to emulate what has happened in Ukraine in Estonia. We tried to introduce a public service card here some years ago and you will recall yourself. It caused consternation. Absolute consternation. I was talking to a young woman in my hotel in Estonia the other night and she told me she gets supermarket discounts on her public service identity card. She is able to bank with it. She is able to electronically sign documents with it. Where are we going in this country? But the defence of the country is my key concern. We need the minister to come here and actually answer questions. I am well aware of the fact that he was here last week and there is times when other ministers are here and you are not here. I was away on business like it or lump it. The minister needs to come here and explain. The story only broke in the last few days. I wasn't referring to Senator Crockwell's travels. What I was referring to is the debate in the defence forces here last week. That is what I am referring to. That is what I am referring to.