Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 18 October 2022
175. Deputy John Lahart asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications the proportion of his Department’s IT data that is stored in the cloud; the proportion of the data held by all agencies and subsidiaries of his Department in the cloud; if this represents an improvement; if so, the development that has been made towards cloud storage since 2019 to date; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [51195/22]
Amharc ar fhreagraA large proportion of the data held by my Department is currently stored on equipment owned and controlled by my Department. Data is stored on external cloud services where there are good business reasons for doing so, principally to allow easier sharing of that data with other parties. In 2020, my Department purchased Microsoft 365 licenses to allow cloud collaboration for staff utilising software such as Office, OneDrive, Teams and Sharepoint in the cloud. Currently we have 6.1K files (95 Gigabytes) stored in OneDrive and 4.4K files (15.1 Gigabytes) stored in Sharepoint online. The Department also utilises ESRI's web-based mapping software ArcGIS Online (AGOL) to partially store data in the cloud on ArcGIS Online, a cloud based WebGIS instance by way of hosted services of DECC and GSI collectively. DECC data is stored on a US Data Cloud Store (dcenr.maps.arcgis.com); GSI data is on European Cloud Store (geodata-gov-ie.maps.arcgis.com/). Collectively for these two instances there is 40GB of data stored on Cloud Storage. There is no personal or sensitive information contained within these servers. All other data is stored and maintained on Departmental SAN (Storage Area Network) storage.
As the economic, security and governance issues associated with cloud storage evolve, my Department will continue to evaluate the relative merits of cloud and on-premises storage of data when making data storage decisions.
176. Deputy Patrick Costello asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications in addition to the Climate Action Plans if his Department will publish a long-term climate action plan which focuses on post-2030 targets; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [51214/22]
Amharc ar fhreagraMy Department contracted technical support and input from a range of bodies and organisations to support and inform the preparation of a Long-term Climate Action Strategy (LTS) in 2019, in line with the then climate ambition set out in Ireland’s Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015. This included analysis on potential decarbonisation pathways. However, with the Programme for Government commitment to substantially increase our climate ambition, including our 2050 objective, submission of Ireland’s draft LTS to the European Commission was paused to ensure it fully aligned with our enhanced climate ambition. While preparing the LTS, we are ensuring that the ambition aligns with our national climate targets, as well as making a strong contribution to the overall EU ambition of achieving climate neutrality no later than 2050, and achieving an interim reduction in overall EU greenhouse gas emissions of 55% by 2030, compared to 1990 levels. Similarly, the LTS will support our commitment to the international objective of limiting global warming to 1.5°C relative to pre-industrial levels, as established under the Paris Climate Agreement, and reaffirmed in the Glasgow Climate Pact. The finalised LTS, which also takes account of the recently approved sectoral ceilings, will be submitted to the European Commission in the coming weeks.
