US Ambassador at Large for Cyberspace and Digital Policy Nathaniel Fick has highlighted the importance of US-Irish collaboration on cybersecurity.
In a briefing with reporters, Mr Fick was asked about cybersecurity investment by Ireland, given the fact that so many large tech firms are based here.
"If Ireland and the United States are going to have a close relationship with full information sharing, intelligence sharing, mutual co-investment in technology partnerships on the most cutting edge aspects of our digital economy then, yes, we have to have mutual confidence in our cybersecurity environments," Mr Fick said.
"Broadly speaking, I think for national security reasons, for trade reasons and for human rights reasons when you think about data privacy, we, the like-minded partners and allies, ought to be investing more and collaborating more and that is fundamentally the enabler of a richer partnership," he added.
Asked about plans for a new EU-US data transfer agreement, Mr Fick described a six-month timeline for its completion as aggressive but added it was important that a deal is agreed.
Last month, Facebook parent company Meta was fined €1.2 billion by the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) for breaches relating to the transfer of personal data from the EU to the US.
As part of the decision, Meta was ordered to suspend transatlantic data flows and given five months to comply.
The company has vowed to appeal the ruling and has commenced High Court proceedings in a bid to overturn the decision.
