Tánaiste signs new regulations to enhance the resilience of the operators of essential services in the State
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Published on
Last updated on
The Tánaiste and Minister for Defence, Micheál Martin, has signed new regulations which will enhance the resilience of the operators of essential services in the State.
These regulations are part of a European Union-wide effort to increase the resilience of all Member States.
The following sectors of the economy will be subject to the regulations: energy, transport, banking, financial market infrastructure, health, drinking water, waste water, digital infrastructure, public administration, space and large-scale production, processing and distribution of food.
The Tánaiste said:
"These new regulations will focus on improving the physical resilience of the operators of essential services in Ireland. My department will create a framework to ensure that these operators are able to prevent, resist, absorb and recover from disruptive incidents, whether they are caused by natural hazards, accidents, terrorism, insider threats, or public health emergencies.”
Key elements of the new regulations include that the Department of Defence will develop a national strategy for resilience of critical entities. This strategy will lay out the governance framework, identification criteria, specific obligations and resilience enhancement measures, particularly around information sharing and developing collaborative public and private engagement.
The department will also develop an enhanced national risk assessment process to aid in identifying these entities.
On their part, the critical entities, once identified, will carry out risk assessments of their own and will take technical, security and organisational measures to enhance their resilience. The department will work with sector-specific regulators to implement this work across the diverse sectors it covers.
Officials in the Department of Defence will work closely with the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications to implement these new regulations. The Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications is currently developing legislation covering the same sectors with a focus on cyber resilience rather than physical resilience.