Central Bank of Ireland

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 28 May 2013

Tuesday, 28 May 2013

Questions (187)

Pearse Doherty

Question:

187. Deputy Pearse Doherty asked the Minister for Finance further to Parliamentary Question No. 105 of 21 May 2013, the reason he cannot state that the Central Bank of Ireland is outsourcing the running of its security functions to a private company when any new arrangement regarding the outsourcing, specifically the financial contract with the company, will in all likelihood be included in the CBoI's annual accounts next year; and if he will explain the way in which stating that the CBoI has a new company in charge of its security operations could possibly remain confidential information and the way the disclosure of that news could in anyway impinge upon security at the bank; if he will state his views given the highly sensitive approach being taken to security at the CBoI and the way in which decision to outsource a potentially security threat to the bank's IT is not a cause of concern for him. [25554/13]

Written answers

Minister for Finance

I would emphasise that responsibility for security arrangements rests with the Central Bank of Ireland and that any suggestion that a new company is responsible for security arrangements is not correct. The Central Bank has entered into a contract with HP to provide the physical data centre environment to host the Central Bank’s IT systems and to manage the technical infrastructure aspects of these systems. HP will also provide hosting facilities at a backup data centre for the purposes of business continuity. Both of these data centres are located in Dublin. However, the Central Bank will remain in control and manage all business application systems and data.

HP will not have access to any of the Central Bank’s business applications. The security of the technical aspects of the systems will be achieved through a combination of physical and logical protections, procedural and process protections, security features including encryption where necessary and on-going monitoring and reporting features. The steps taken comply with the Central Bank’s internal security policies and those of the ECB and are underpinned by the contractual and legal arrangements with HP.