JOINT COMMITTEE ON JUSTICE, EQUALITY, DEFENCE AND WOMEN'S RIGHTS díospóireacht -
Thursday, 30 Apr 2009

Report of the European Security Research and Innovation Forum: Discussion.

Chairman

This is a discussion with the Centre for Irish and European Security Policy regarding the forthcoming report of the European Security Research and Innovation Forum, ESRIF. I welcome Ms Eleanor Travers and Ms Sadhbh McCarthy and thank them for providing the committee with a briefing note. I invite them to make a brief opening statement which will be followed by a questions and answers session.

Before beginning, I draw witnesses' attention to the fact that members of the committee have absolute privilege but this same privilege does not apply to witnesses appearing before it. Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. I ask that all mobile telephones be switched off during the meeting.

Ms Sadhbh McCarthy

I thank the Chairman and members. I am Sadhbh McCarthy and this is my colleague, Eleanor Travers. Members have our presentation which is also displayed on the screen. With the committee's permission, I will briefly take members through the introduction before Ms Travers tells them a little about the ESRIF.

The objectives of our presentation are to brief the committee in advance of the presentation to be given by Mr. Dragutin Mate, the ESRIF's chairman, and to outline the Irish contribution to that forum. This is the first time that such a forum has been held in Europe and Irish participation has been especially strong. From this we have established the Centre for Irish and European Security Policy which we will introduce to members today. We would also like to discuss the opportunities for Irish European engagement in a constructive and positive way.

I will hand over to Ms Travers, who will discuss the ESRIF. I expect we will run through this presentation in ten minutes at which time members could ask questions unless they would prefer to interject as we go along. The committee's preference is fine with us.

Chairman

The witnesses will make the presentation and we will ask questions afterwards.

Ms Eleanor Travers

I thank members. The ESRIF was set up by EU member states following a recommendation of its predecessor, the European Security Research Advisory Board, which believed there was a need to have a dialogue among security stakeholders to devise a research agenda and a strategic plan for security research up to 2030. The board also believed that discussing research in its purest sense was not enough. Rather, this would need to follow on into innovation to bring products to the market in terms of security.

The member states supported the recommendation and established the forum, the membership of which comprises 64 individuals from 31 countries who nominate experts from those countries to participate on 11 working groups. As all participants were asked to contribute to the ESRIF on a voluntary basis, they are not paid.

Originally, Ireland did not nominate anyone. However, the aviation industry wanted someone to discuss aviation, a significant issue in terms of security and passengers' airport experiences. I was working with the Dublin Airport Authority at the time and was also involved with the Airports Council International, ACI, in Europe. The Commission put Ireland and the ACI together and they suggested I go forward. As such, I am the only Irish member of the ESRIF. Through my membership, however, I have nominated several people, including Ms McCarthy, to participate within the forum. We have had an interesting journey since the ESRIF's establishment.

I will discuss what the ESRIF does and its focus. Certain dimensions are priorities. First and foremost, it is a matter of people and citizens, so it addresses issues of terrorism, organised crime and even social and civil unrest in certain situations. It also considers infrastructure. Critical infrastructure is defined at European level in 11 categories covering a broad range of areas, including energy, health, food, aviation, agriculture, transport, maritime, information and communication technology and security at nuclear and research facilities. A further group covers border security while another covers crisis management. Of the 11 groups, the four main mission groups cover these general areas. I was invited to be and am still the chair of the working group on critical infrastructure. It tries to address a security research agenda for critical infrastructure by coupling it with the issue of innovating to the market.

The groups were augmented with technology groups. For example, we had specialist areas to cover forecasting, identification management, etc. We also had an important group dealing with the human aspects and dynamics related to security. The programme commenced in September 2007.

Chairman

We have a vote in the Dáil so we must suspend this meeting while we vote. We will return to Ms Travers's presentation.

Sitting suspended at 10.50 a.m. and resumed at 11.05 a.m.

Chairman

I apologise for the interruption and ask Ms Travers to continue her presentation.

Ms Eleanor Travers

As the programme will finish later this year, we have entered a key period in terms of preparing our final report. I will ask our chairman to provide further details for the committee when he visits next week. The key indicators of the work done over the past 18 months focus on ESRIF's twin-track approach, bearing in mind the forum comprises not only civil society in terms of academics, NGOs and people with a keen interest in this area, together with manufacturers of security equipment and suppliers of security services, but also end users, namely, governments, airports and other ports and transport companies. These entities have come together to formulate our agenda on research and innovation in security.

We are focusing on issues such as security in society. Simply put, we only secure what we value. It is important that we understand that concept to maintain our connection with citizens in terms of protecting what they value. Societal resilience and trust are the most important topics to come out of the forum's deliberations. We cannot protect ourselves against every single threat because this is a civil security agenda so we have to be resilient in the face of threats by examining our level of preparedness and whether our systems are adaptable. Trust is key to understanding the relationship between citizen and government or security provider. We must respect that trust, otherwise we will not be effective. Security providers are at times in danger of putting in measures that people work to undermine because they do not understand or trust them. We have seen examples of this in the area of aviation.

Innovation and industrial policy is important for Europe generally but critical for Ireland because this is how the research budget will be spent. The budget for security research is €1.4 billion at present, with €200 million being spent in the current year alone. We want a share of that money. The agenda must reflect the importance of innovation and industrial policy if we are to ensure the market is competitive and viable and that Ireland gets its share.

Much of this education and training goes to public awareness of the importance of it. There is also a need to work at a national level and engage with different actors and at a European level with different countries. Interoperability is critical. We mentioned security by design because it is very important. If one designs security early enough, it does not become the bolted-on extra measure. It is more about being mindful of what is important to us and securing the way we want to live our lives.

With the Irish advisory group we had several people involved but we examined how we could co-ordinate this and make the best effort to get Ireland's wishes on the agenda. We were facilitated in this by Enterprise Ireland and we examined every security domain that ESRIF covered and looked for people involved in that. We had a wealth of expertise and many organisations, public and private, responded and helped us in trying to formulate Ireland's agenda. Earlier we briefly mentioned the initial attempt within critical infrastructure not to cover areas such as health, food, water or agriculture because issues such as transport and information technology are very important. However, for Ireland agriculture is a very significant issue and it is very important that how we secure agriculture is on the agenda and that resources are given to that in any future budgets that will arise. Ireland has been very active on that.

Another area Ireland has agreed on and supported, and which as a result ESRIF has taken on board, is engaging the social agenda within the security agenda as opposed to dealing with it separately. We have to respect and embed societal values within security.

Ms Sadhbh McCarthy

As Ms Travers said, when we began the ESRIF process, when she was appointed chair and I came in as chair of one of the committees on the integration of the societal values, we quickly recognised that most countries had a very co-ordinated approach. They were not going in as individuals. They had a national agenda and knew what they wanted from it. We did not have that, so we began to evolve it. One of the reasons we want agriculture in the security research budget is that we are very good at this, we do TraceBack, this is an area of expertise. If that is put in the security agenda it is a way we will get money back in investment that will develop our economic interests. Our economic interests tend to be focused not on matters such as aircraft and railway building. Those are things that happen in other countries, so they are very good at getting those on the agenda and we had to improve.

When ESRIF finishes it will be one of the recommendations that there will be an ongoing forum to implement its outcomes. This will happen every year. That forum will decide how the money is spent. It is €1.2 billion and it will increase. They will ask how that money will be spent and many people will lobby to ensure it goes into the areas they want it to go into. We have seen what can be achieved in ESRIF if one is co-ordinated because we had a great Irish co-ordinated policy and got much of what we wanted. To ensure we continue to do that ESRIF will not be the mechanism, but we would like to think we could make the centre the mechanism. We formed the Centre for Irish and European Security Policy to be the next step from ESRIF. We already have 40 to 60 people on the advisory board coming from justice, health, agriculture and the private sector. We need this type of independent forum to keep the momentum, allow Ireland to keep its voice and facilitate the debate. Ireland is interesting because we have all the complexity without the scale.

Moving away from agriculture, the challenges we explicitly address in ESRIF include organised crime, which is very topical for this committee. We have been dealing with organised crime. The manifestation of organised crime as we have seen it, which is coming from the Troubles in the North, is something they are only coming to terms with in Europe. They are only starting to see it and come to terms with it now after the breakdown in eastern Europe. As we have been dealing with it for a while we have expertise in it and have already started to deal with it. However, we do not go back to try to take from Europe what we can in order to deal with that and to feed back into it.

We need an independent forum to facilitate the debate in civil society. Part of the challenge we have in Ireland is that civil security can be a contentious topic. There could be perceived to be an overlap between security and defence. When we talk about it we always talk about civil security but it would be very naive to think that is the only thing. In terms of something like crisis management one will always need military support. Therefore one needs certain common technologies such as communications. For example, there is no point in the army using Vodafone and the police using O2 if they cannot talk to each other. There are initiatives in Europe around software defined radio, which is a common communications platform. It would not be appropriate, for instance, to have two separate research funding streams in this area because that would waste money. Ireland is sometimes challenged by that civil security and military or defence overlap as are Germany and Sweden. We are not alone in this and we must examine it, but we must have a serious and intelligent debate on it rather than a reactionary one. We would like the centre to be one of the places where we could do that because it is non-political and is a place people can come and have dialogue.

Our organisational vision includes the security of people, that is dealing with organised crime and terrorism; infrastructures such as the critical infrastructure we normally think of such as airports and ESB stations; and health and agriculture. One of Ireland's achievements is that we managed to get bio-diversity included in critical infrastructure. Bio-diversity in our case refers to the maritime sector. That was not considered to be a security issue but it is a major security issue for us because we have the highest sea to land ratio in Europe and we do not know how valuable our assets are in a bio-diversity context around the borders and, therefore, we do not necessarily have the kind of security we need. We have managed to persuade ESRIF that bio-diversity must be included and we must examine what needs to be put in place to protect the sea area. From an Irish context that is very important.

The stakeholders we see as being the Government, citizens, operators such as the DAA, suppliers, manufacturers and research institutes. The values piece on the right of this slide is about transparency, representation and everybody having a voice. It is about trust that this is not an agenda where somebody is trying to do something. Security is often perceived as the State trying to do something to the citizen. This is not what it is about. It is about everybody understanding what we are trying to secure and having some trust that we are trying to get the best outcome. The values also include consultation and professionalism.

The mission and objective are as follows: that we will have a platform allowing opportunity for consultation for all the stakeholders; that we can create a space for the open, informed debate about civil security in Ireland and in the context of Europe; and that there is a focal point for the Irish input to ongoing cross-functional civil security initiatives in Europe.

We are before the justice committee here and that is a very important part of civil security. However, transport, health, agriculture and foreign affairs also are equally important and we need an integrated approach. Enterprise is critical because much of what we want to do is ensure we get the economic benefit of a large security industry in Europe. We would like to develop an innovate programme and create as much competitive advantage for Ireland as we can by leveraging what capacities we have in the civil securities sector. We know we do things quite well already. We do not necessarily take that out into the broader context of Europe.

We would like the committee to engage a little in what we have been trying to do and support the involvement of end-users in the security debate, particularly in the research domain. Currently, it is not traditionally something done by the Garda, the Naval Service or end users like the Revenue Commissioners. It is quite difficult for them to engage in this but it is important they do, if we can get them to do so.

We would like to encourage the co-ordination of national initiatives so we can really exploit any opportunity, especially in the current economic climate. We are currently working with InterTradeIreland to get a project off the ground which explicitly looks at what technologies and capacities we have that can be adapted for the security market. We would like to bring about a co-ordinated response for European opportunities so we can build on the successful approach we have taken with ESRIF, as that has worked really well. We can also emulate the success of other countries in Europe.

I will give some small examples. The Netherlands is not that much bigger than Ireland but it takes 11% of the security budget, which is an enormous amount. They have a very focused approach, they co-ordinate activities and they know what they are doing. Finland gets a very high percentage as well, although there is no particular reason, and the big countries of Germany, France and Italy all have very large security industries, typically dominating the debate. We are trying to say that small countries also have our agenda and we need to start getting involved.

Mr. Dragutin Mate will come here next week and talk a little bit about recommendations. He will speak on the technology investment that is to be made; although I do not know what that will be, they are talking about trebling the security budget, which is currently at €1.2 billion to 2013. That will be through JLS, the justice division.

They will also talk about investment in space assets and using space for certain things. That is critically important for Ireland. As we have such a large sea border, the more information we can get on boats, for example, if we do not know why they are in a certain location, the better it will be for us. We need to have fewer physical resources going around to see what such boats are doing and it will be good if we can get it from surveillance from space. That is very important for us.

We need more money to be spent on the root causes of insecurity caused by violent radicalisation. We all know how important that is in the Irish context with regard to understanding the causes of terrorism and addressing it at an early stage. The co-ordination of the civil and military aspects will become more important and is problematic. They will talk about that and we should have a focused agenda.

Our hope today was to brief the committee on what is coming up. There is an opportunity for us here and if we could get a co-ordinated approach, Ireland could make a bit of a step change in how we think about civil security and engage with it. I thank the committee for its time.

Chairman

I thank the witness for the presentation.

Deputy Brian O’Shea

I welcome our two guests and thank them for their presentation. This is somewhat new to us. My brief is in the defence area and the witnesses are aware that this falls within the committee's remit. In some meetings which I attend in Europe, an issue which arises is manufacturing for the military within Europe. We do not come to the table in any real way with that although industrial policy has a bearing on it. Would the contracting of work from major manufacturers in Europe be pursued with Enterprise Ireland or is it restricted by industrial policy? My recollection is that there are restrictions on manufacturing for the military industry.

One of the other issues is that whereas the US has good access to EU markets, the reverse is not quite true. I take it this matter has come up. Another issue which does not immediately occur to one in terms of civil society is cyber-warfare. When I heard about this it sounded like something from "Star Wars". We have seen a couple of examples where serious attacks took place on a couple of European states.

I have raised the issue with the Minister for Defence and we are conscious of it and looking at it. It may be possible for somebody to disable our social welfare system, meaning we would not be able to get our payments out on time. These dangers might not occur to the average person. I see that ICT is one of the areas looked at. Has the area of cyber-warfare come into discussions at any level or is it perceived as something which must be looked at seriously?

Trafficking is included under another heading. I recall coming through Heathrow within about a month of the 11 September terrorist attacks in 2001 and noticing the security measures. I arrived in the early hours of the morning from the US and there was no need for queues to snake around the hall. On the other hand there were enormous worries at the time and they have not disappeared as time goes by. There are other issues such as piracy on the east coast of Africa which affect member states so would they be considered?

Ms McCarthy indicated that the committee should demonstrate engagement on the matter and we would be open to this as time would allow. The issue of jobs arises. All politicians are attracted nowadays to initiatives that would indicate that in the short, medium or long term, employment would accrue from engagement. The nuclear issue is also listed. Have the witnesses taken any position on that in the Irish context? For example, are we precluded from manufacturing components etc. for the nuclear industry?

The matter is new and interesting and the issues which have been raised, including organised crime, will not go away. The fact we have an edge in it did not immediately occur to me. I would have thought that with regard to organised crime, Italy would have much more experience than us over a longer period. The Troubles in Northern Ireland have reached other areas even outside the EU.

Have the witnesses an attitude on illegal immigration or has the matter been considered? Are policy positions developing in this regard? I could ask many other questions but these issues are of biggest interest to me at this point.

Ms Sadhbh McCarthy

That is plenty to be going on with and we will split the questions between us. I will start with the industrial policy and the position with regard to the military and security. That will tie into the later question about jobs as well.

In Europe there is an enormous security industry, with much of this developing from the original defence contractors. The companies which used to make the bombers and missiles tend to make more of the civil security solutions now. The reason behind this is the technology issue.

In Ireland we do not have that large security sector. However, we have many small and medium enterprises which are capable of developing components which can feed the civil security sector. An example is the technology for border management between Russia and Finland, as that border is very long. They cannot have border guards all the way along it.

What we have developed are very sophisticated sensors that can detect movement. Unmanned aircraft vehicles, UAVs, are employed and there are sensors on the ground. That amounts to border control and it is not necessarily military. Irish companies are capable of developing and have developed some of the most important technologies in the sensor components sector but we do not exploit as much as we could some of the other sophisticated technologies we have available in Ireland to supply to large manufacturers.

One of the things we are doing is working with InterTradeIreland on cross-Border initiatives. We have engaged with two of the major industries in Europe to understand what it is they want from high technology SMEs in order that we can bring it to them. The military component is not enormous. It is not about military equipment and it is not a great concern that we would be supplying technologies for military deployment no more than if we were to develop component parts for aircraft that could be sold for use in military aircraft. That does not mean, however, we cannot develop and deploy the components.

Enterprise Ireland is engaged in this area. It has been incredibly supportive and its perspective relates to how we can secure investment. One of the key objectives of the centre is to see how we can leverage this to influence industrial policy in Ireland and throughout Europe to provide jobs in this country. We believe there is that opportunity and that there is the necessary level of innovation.

On the nuclear industry, the context in which we are talking about chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, CBRN, issues is not to do with manufacturing but with managing the threat if there was a nuclear explosion or how one detects nuclear materials and chemical or biological weapons. First, it is an industrial policy. I hope that says yes to the committee in the sense that it is a huge area for us and that we really care about the issue. It is true the United States has excellent access to Europe but we do not have great access to the United States. One of the key elements of the industrial policy coming from ESRIF is how we make sure European manufacturers and industries lead the global market in the security technologies we need in order that it is not a question of protectionism but just that we are better. Therefore, it represents better value; it makes more sense and creates jobs. That matter has been explicitly addressed at a European level and we believe Ireland will feed into it.

Ms Travers will address the committee on cyber warfare, aviation and trafficking and piracy along the east coast.

Ms Eleanor Travers

I will add to what Ms McCarthy said about the US-Ireland relationship. We have a strong, good and long-standing relationship with the United States, which a lot of other European countries do not enjoy. That is something to which we can contribute because it is important for us. I have seen it in a practical way in aviation. I have seen what is being done in Shannon which is being built upon. Shannon Airport and the duty-free zone were built on relationships Ireland had forged with other countries; that is something we bring to the table. Perhaps we would not have seen it as important because we do it naturally in some respects. I am sure committee members will have seen for themselves from a European point of view that there can be a degree of paranoia or concern about the ideological differences that at times have caused a difficulty for both parties with what we would call mutual recognition. However, that is changing and Europe has a lot to offer. Ireland's role in that regard has been to the fore and been a welcome development.

On information technology and ICT, we saw what happened in Estonia and Georgia. It is the reality today; we are not talking about the future. It is not "Star Wars"; it is happening today. We have examined this a great deal in ESRIF because there will always be an effort to secure and protect. In the world of information technology the threats are changing as fast as the protection measures. The strategic plans are for five years; they do not fit with the 20-year model of planning. It is a totally different scenario. Within that area we have done some good things, not just nationally but within ESRIF. One initiative concerns CERTs. The full name of the acronym does not spring to mind but a CERT is a national organisation where incidents of hacking or particular types of virus are reported. We have such an organisation in Ireland.

Through the centre the work I do on aviation security matters has meant involvement at European level, not with the Commission but with the European Civil Aviation Conference examining information security measures and the elements of aviation which need to be protected. Ireland is involved in that small study group, as is the Home Office in the United Kingdom; France, both at government level and the level of head of security at Airbus, in addition to the Swiss. The group is examining this area but will bring forward recommendations that will be incorporated in how we protect aviation. There are several examples of that model but what we do not have is the big picture of co-ordination — how it is all coming together and whether we are making the best use of what we have available. The centre was able to point to what was already being done for CERTs and we tried to incorporate this with the work being done in aviation to avoid duplication, which is a waste of resources. We use existing good ideas and draw what lessons we can learn from that experience in aviation. That is a small example of what we have been able to do through co-ordination.

ICT is an important issue. We must understand the citizen is now part of our system. We are trying to develop e-government solutions. We have electronic ticketing systems. All of these measures are good in terms of facilitation, as they enable the freedom people want in movement but they are vulnerable in certain ways. However, we should not worry too much. Systems will be attacked. The question is what happens then. It is about being prepared for this and how quickly we can resume. That is what the emphasis in ESRIF is on. Ideally, one does not want it to happen; therefore, one has protection measures to prevent it happening. The crucial issue is how fast one can get the system back to normal operation. That is why ESRIF puts the emphasis on resilience.

Specifically on aviation, we have had a difficult few years. There was no legislation in Europe on aviation security until after the 11 September 2001 attacks. In delivering its response it created regulations that it has had to refine. We are going through a transition period in which we are moving from the previous set of regulations to a new and more stable model. It is a good example to show how one needs to be careful with regulations. Aviation was one of the most regulated industries nationally, at a European level and globally. Good and strong measures were in place but aviation was confronted with an attack it had never had to deal with before where an aircraft was the weapon used. That challenged everybody and changed the mindset.

We must be careful that we do not lose sight of what it is we are trying to achieve. We want people to travel by air. We do not want a visit to an airport to be about security measures; it is about the movement of passengers and freight. Issues such as customs and controls are important but we want people to travel because trade is important, especially in an island economy. We need to support and grow it. The cargo element is closely aligned to economic performance. When the economy is doing well, it is a major growth sector. There are astonishing levels of freight being transported by air but it is the first sector to slow down when there is an economic downturn because people quickly use alternative means of transporting freight. Security is part of aviation in the way it has always been but we have a changing focus. We need to keep at the centre of our thinking how we keep people travelling and how we support trade and ensure we can move goods and services as effectively as possible.

Again, ICT is part of that process. If we can try to leverage some of the knowledge we have in that regard, we can make our documentation systems more integrated and efficient. We can support even what is being done now in the United States, with cargo and green lane initiatives. These are really important because the more electronic we become, the more critical it is that we are able to protect that trade and be assured that what is moving are the kinds of goods which, in 99% of cases, are for legitimate ordinary people and trade. That is the sort of practice we want to support and encourage and this is where we must try to strike that balance. I believe aviation has been an example of good and bad.

Deputy Seán Connick

I, too, welcome both ladies. It is a very interesting subject. Like many members, I am not sure if many people are aware that an organisation with such aims even exists. It is timely to have a co-ordinated approach from Ireland during this economic downturn and also to have opportunities for creating employment. The delegates should make presentations to all Oireachtas committees. These matters will be of great concern to the economic committees, for example, the Joint Committee for Enterprise, Trade and Employment.

I welcome the co-ordinated approach which we should look at and model across all sectors, not only security, and particularly with regard to the European content. Sometimes when one is close to the coal face, one does not realise we have this much experience in Ireland with regard to specific areas, particularly the agricultural industry. That was demonstrated recently by the way in which we were able to trace dioxins in pork. That is an area in which we have particularly strong expertise. Similarly, we have expertise with regard to the situation in the North because of dealing with the difficulties there over the years.

The delegates will have a considerable job to do in sending out their message to the public and dealing with how the media will treat the subject. We must get away from the idea that security is a dirty word. People think it is about killing people when in reality it is the alternative, namely, protecting citizens and allowing them to get on with their lives in an unthreatened and civil society. There is a significant job to be done there and I am not sure how the delegates will manage it. Obviously, such discussion widens the debate. It was interesting to hear the witnesses talk about the intelligent rather than the reactionary debate. Issues of security or defence issues tend to bring out the latter kind from people. We must have that debate and these points must be made.

I was watching some documentaries on RTE over recent weeks which covered major rescues in Ireland and it was interesting to watch the different services involved. One service said it could hear the helicopter but could not communicate with it, while people stranded on the mountain could talk to each other but could not communicate with anybody on a mobile phone. There is a lack of co-ordination between the different devices. There are opportunities here to establish a single system that would be available to everybody and benefit people.

Concerning airports, I always smile to see belts and shoes being taken off and the frisking that goes on but when one gets on an eight-hour flight, one can have as much alcohol as one wants for the duration of the flight. As a non-drinker during a flight I wonder if a person who drinks will go cracked and open the door. One is always worried about that guy on the aircraft and who will protect one in such an instance. It is a matter of striking a balance and getting it right so that we can make sure that things are proper for everybody.

The Irish economy is a small one and we spend money on our Naval Service, but my view has been that, as part of the European Union, we should have a co-ordinated plan, a type of European coastguard, particularly because Ireland's coastline is so long and important. We are the first point of entry to the European Union for any craft coming across the Atlantic. I have often wondered if this situation might present opportunities from an Irish perspective. Obviously, such a coastguard would employ different nationalities as well as Irish people but it would be centrally funded and would help our naval service in its job, particularly in the current climate. We have seen the large drug hauls in recent times.

Another aspect is our relationship in the Boston-Berlin debate, which always continues. We have always had a very good relationship with the United States and, on this side of water, with our European friends. Concerning the knowledge economy towards which we are heading, the witnesses made a point about surveillance equipment. We have companies here that manufacture very clever pieces of equipment and components which can be used for the benefit of everybody.

I am concerned that the delegates do not take a position on nuclear issues. How will they manage that situation? Or will they adopt a position? Will they say they are against this or that? Or will they go in with an open mind and debate the subject, putting points across on that basis, leaving the Government to set the policy agenda? They might touch on that subject in their response

Concerning the budget in place now, the figure given is €1.4 billion. Is that the actual figure up to 2013?

Ms Eleanor Travers

It is a five-year budget.

Deputy Seán Connick

The proposal then is to run from——

Chairman

Is it a total budget rather than a per annum one?

Ms Eleanor Travers

The per annum figures are broken down. This year it is for €200 million; last year it was for €120 million. It is divided up according to the topics.

Ms Sadhbh McCarthy

The €1.2 billion is limited to Framework 7. It is for security research under the Framework 7 section of the budget. ESRIF will ask for a completely separate budget. Its security budget extends beyond Framework 7 which is a very narrow part of the research programme within the Commission. This is for three times that amount and the recommendation will be that there will be significantly increased spending. The Commission budgets always run for five years so that will continue until 2013 and I believe it will be for a great deal more. Does that answer the Deputy's question?

Deputy Seán Connick

That is fine. Another aspect concerns the global village. If we consider the financial meltdown in global markets, most of us could lead our lives watching Sky News in the morning with the opening markets, then watch the markets in Ireland, the UK and France into the evening and finally tune into the US markets. Things move very quickly now and this relates to the point Deputy O'Shea made with regard to ICT. We are in a very changed, fast-moving environment. It is the same with the swine flu outbreak. Will the delegates look at such issues with regard to the threat to human health and how we should deal with them from a security point of view?

I am fascinated by this subject. There are great opportunities and all are positive. The message the witnesses sell will be the most important communication they will give to the public. Many people would share my belief that if we can improve the safety of the citizen, that is obviously the route to take. If there are benefits for us in respect of job creation that is an addition and it is fantastic. I welcome the co-ordinated approach. This is very timely.

There have been many films on this topic. I am sure the delegates have seen "The Bourne Identity", for example, in which amazing things are done. I do not know if such is the case but, if so, it is fantastic to have technology that can follow and trace people using satellites or mobile phones. I would like to see Ireland being part of any such development of technology that will happen across Europe. I am sure the people of this country would feel likewise. I wish the delegates well in their endeavour and I hope the Oireachtas can give them as much support as possible.

Ms Sadhbh McCarthy

I thank the Deputy for his kind words of support. What we hoped to do today was to raise some interest and give some insight into the potential that exists and perhaps start the engagement. I very much like the idea that we might present to all the committees. That is more or less what we had said we needed to do.

Concerning getting the message across to the media, the Deputy is completely right. We are launching the centre formally on Thursday, 7 May. That is why the chairman, Mr. Dragutin Mate, is in town. He will launch the centre for us and because he will be here, he was invited to speak to the Oireachtas committee. We are launching the centre in the Commission offices because it is very much a European-Irish initiative. We will have three other speakers. One speaker, from DG Enterprise, will talk about the enterprise and industrial policy aspect, about new technologies and the opportunities that exist in Europe and in Ireland. Two people will talk about the ethics of security — the title of one paper is Security and Ethics. We have also brought in someone slightly controversial because he has written a book called Arming Big Brother about the militarisation of the European Union. We are doing this to show that we are transparent. We are trying to be open, to raise the debate and bring it to people’s attention, but how much the media engage with that depends on the day. We are doing our best to give them the fullest information, to make it as accessible as possible and make it an open, honest dialogue.

We do not take a policy position. Government sets policy. The focus of the Centre for Irish and European Security will be to allow the kind of dialogue and input that can inform policy. We hope to do that by connecting with the committee and the Departments. We hope to get the right response but that can be difficult.

The swine flu pandemic provides a great example of co-ordinated activity and Ms Travers will speak more on this. The threat level has increased to five so this will be a pandemic. The extent of the casualties and the human and economic cost will be mitigated by the co-ordinated response in Europe and North America because of the proactive surveillance which helped early identification when the infection arose in those regions. The converse happened in Mexico through a lack of preparedness. The Mexican authorities did not have health surveillance in place and did not recognise the new strain soon enough and when it did it was too late.

The co-ordination affects not only hospitals but airports and the Department of Foreign Affairs. We cannot leave Irish people in Mexico. We have to bring them back and decide how to inform them. It is important to inform people. We feel strongly about societal resilience, which depends on how much citizens trust what the Government tells them and how they get their information. This should not come from Sky News. Public information is not its job. It is there to get everybody excited about breaking headlines. People need to get information from the Government that prompts concern but not alarm, as they say in the United States. Trust is the most important element. If people believe what the Government tells them they will act calmly and that will manage down the incident. Much of our work in the centre and through ESRIF involved understanding that it is not always a question of technology but of the society and how we relate to and inform society.

Chairman

One of my questions concerned jobs but Ms McCarthy has dealt adequately with that. She mentioned that Holland, whose population is not much bigger than Ireland's, has 11% of the budget. Is that the €1.4 billion budget or the overall security budget for all of Europe? Where does the centre's funding come from? Do the staff work full time? Where is the centre based? Is it at the Commission's office? How exactly is the centre structured? Who appoints the representative on ESRIF?

Ms Eleanor Travers

Enterprise Ireland asked me to participate as Ireland's member of ESRIF. The nomination went forward through the permanent ambassador to the Commission. One simply has to be a member of ESRIF to nominate people to the working groups because they do not have voting rights within ESRIF. Enterprise Ireland identified interested companies, organisations and Departments. I and others spoke to them and various people came forward. That is how we built our contributors to the ESRIF forum.

The budget is not size-related, in other words, France and Germany do not get a large piece of the pie, leaving us with a pro rata smaller sum. One has to compete for the money. The security research programme, Framework 7, is a competition. Enterprise Ireland works very hard — I would not be here were it not for it — to encourage Irish organisations to engage in that competition. The advantage is on the demand side, among those who need security such as the Garda Síochána or the airport authorities. They come together and articulate their needs to people who manufacture and develop the circuits, build the sensors or have the technology to meet those requirements. There is a need to engage with those entities at European level and ESRIF has done that for the first time ever. In the past that was done bilaterally.

At national level, bringing those parties together has resulted not just in real engagement but in opportunities for networking between the groups. We can connect people and see possible project consortia that might compete for this money. It is a transparent process with which we must engage. We have the energy, the expertise and good technology and service providers, and we are trying to bring them together in a national forum with Enterprise Ireland, which makes that connection too. We complement one another. Other countries have shown the results of co-ordination. I have no problem taking a performance measurement of the centre to show what we get back if we get the support. Enterprise Ireland takes that measurement in many respects but it has a specific mandate. Our mandate is broader in respect of security. We have seen opportunities arise from this level of co-ordination.

Ms McCarthy and I set up the centre with a view to doing all these great things but we need funding. We have no funding now. We are considering raising funding through membership fees and through participating in and running projects. That is what we will get paid to do. We have been approached by people who want us to get involved in tasks and projects. We are already looking for a project manager for one of these and a second one may arise in August. We are a small organisation that started in the past six months and already opportunities are opening which will allow us to give opportunities to others because if we start doing the projects ourselves we will not be able to run the centre. We have seen other companies which have done this. ICT provides an excellent example. The Waterford Institute of Technology has a fantastic programme running at European level and it is doing a project with the US and China.

I did not know anything about this 18 months ago. I was in a sector with a particular hierarchy and knew only people with whom I was dealing on governance and in the relationship with the Department of Transport. I did not have the wider perspective. We have found through our activities on ESRIF that there are real opportunities that deliver jobs. They might not be the hundreds of thousands of jobs that we need now, but any small contribution is a good one. Every job is an important job. That is our point of view.

Ms Sadhbh McCarthy

The question in members' minds is probably how enterprise and justice come together in Ireland. It is because of the way they are set up in Europe. Traditionally, the Directorate General for enterprise has been responsible for security research and the Directorate General for justice has been responsible for the security programme. Of course, there is a huge overlap. From our point of view in Ireland, Enterprise Ireland has the DG enterprise relationship. I have been evaluating security projects for Europe for the past five years, since the first preparatory action project in 2004. As a representative from Ireland, I have been going over and evaluating what the money should be spent on. That has always been an enterprise initiative.

At present, there is a struggle in Europe about who is going to control the money. Is it justice or enterprise? Technically, it should be justice because civil security is involved, but I am sure members can imagine what is going on. The justice side is the end-user side. Enterprise is the supply side as it involves manufacturing and industrial policy, and justice is the demand side. It is about what the border police need, what the Garda Síochána need, what Interpol needs, what Europol needs and so on. Traditionally, Ireland has approached the matter from the enterprise and research points of view and the justice side tends not to get involved, except in specific matters, but it is probably time we did get involved, because we can gain from it. I hope the committee has heard that we are trying to create opportunity, in more than one way.

Chairman

I thank both witnesses for coming in this morning. As members said, it was an interesting discussion and a timely one. It has given us some insight into what is being done so we will not be totally at sea when Mr. Dragutin Mate comes before us next week. We now have some idea what the matter is about. We look forward to that next week.

The joint committee adjourned at noon until 9.30 a.m. on Thursday, 7 May 2009.