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For Oral Answer on : 24/02/2022
Question Number(s): 88 Question Reference(s): 9283/22
Department: Environment, Climate and Communications
Asked by: David Stanton T.D.
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QUESTION
[Ref No.: 9283/22]
To ask the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications the number of staff currently working at the National Cyber Security Centre; and if he will make a statement on the matter. – David Stanton.
For ORAL answer on Thursday, 24th February, 2022.
(13 Received on 15th February, 2022.)
REPLY
The role of the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) is to support Government Departments and other public bodies to improve the resilience and security of their IT systems, to better protect services that people rely upon and their data. The NCSC has a number of vital functions including coordinating the response to large scale cyber security incidents, supporting public sector bodies and critical national infrastructure to safeguard their systems and mitigate cyber risks, and sharing advice and guidance on cyber threats with its constituents and the wider community. The NCSC avails of external expert support as required including a number of third party incident response services. The NCSC also engages on ongoing basis with relevant partner agencies in the EU, as well as the US and UK.
In July 2021 on foot of a Memorandum for Government, the Government agreed to implement a number of capacity building measure for the National Cyber Security Centre. The overall fulltime staffing complement of the NCSC will also be increased to at least 70 over the next 5 years with 20 additional staff recruited by the end of 2022, bringing the serving complement to 45. In addition to the creation of 20 new permanent posts in the NCSC, a cyber security graduate training programme will be initiated in 2021, with four computer science graduates recruited each year on contracts of a three year duration. Currently there are 29 staff members in the NCSC, the highest level of staffing since the NCSC’s establishment.
