CYBER THREATS – TIME TO RETHINK IRISH NEUTRALITY.
Posted on 14th May 2022
Watching the continuing slaughter and destruction in Ukraine and the mass displacement of people affecting many countries, including our own, will force us to re-examine some of our traditionally held positions including neutrality. However, let me start with remarks made by Jen Easterly, a US Director of Cybersecurity and Infrastructure . This week via video link at the annual CyberUK Conference. She said “The stakes in the decade ahead could not be any higher particularly for those of us in technology and cyber security”. She went on to say “ It was not an exaggeration to say that the next 10 years will determine whether the governments of the post 2nd World War liberal order will survive”. Don’t know about you but that sent a shiver down my spine. You might think, how can this affect us ? Well in my view all you have to look at is the attempt by the damn Russians to expand their embassy in Dublin. They announced their plans in 2015 but in April 2020 the then Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy blocked the expansion because it was “ likely to be harmful to the security and the defence of the State and the State’s relationship with other States”. To my knowledge they are still pursuing this project. Our government must resist this at every juncture. Any of Putin’s GRU goons in Ireland are hardly here for benign purposes and we should realise that there are so many high tech companies based here which must affect the State’s vulnerability.
