Dr. Edward Burke

And I think there's still a kind of sense that Ireland is perhaps exceptional, that people have, because we are a post-colonial state,

that we almost assume that others may not be interested in harming us.

It's not that they're directly threatening Ireland because they are opposed to Ireland.

It's because that perhaps if they hack into intellectual property, the type of

let's say, control systems, satellite technology that we work on in UCD that, let's say, some states might gain a significant military advantage from accessing that.

So it's because Ireland is a leader in so many different innovative sectors that have dual use.

They can be used for economic reasons, but they can also be used for military reasons that we've seen a real spike in espionage.

And of course, Ireland is also

You know, it's very much on the crossroads of the global economy and communications hubs.

So if you want to attack the West, then you look for sort of vulnerable points in the system.

And Ireland, some states view Ireland as that vulnerable point.

Oh, absolutely.

It is possible.

And indeed, that's exactly what the Russian Navy is attempting to prepare for, because they view it is quite likely that there will be a war against NATO in the coming years.

And therefore, if that war escalates into something just unimaginably larger and more dangerous than what we've seen in the war, the war we have in Europe at present, the war in Ukraine, and then they have to use whatever levers they can to harm, to

to cause devastation to the NATO economy, not least the United States, Canada, the UK, et cetera.

And ways to do that is to cut off Atlantic communications, sort of throwing the Western economies into chaos, and then using that as extraordinary leverage to push NATO into getting what you want.

Yeah, I mean, I think that some really good work has been done by Richard Brown and the people who work for him at the National Cyber Security Centre.

You know, I think Ireland is more prepared, has done lots of different scenario exercises, has also worked closely with

uh, NATO, uh, cyber, uh, defence excellence centres, et cetera.