The director of the National Cyber Security Centre should be paid up to €290,000 annually, the Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications has heard.
Concerns were raised by committee members that Ireland does not have enough indigenous talent to address cybercrime.
The current salary for this role is €89,000, but cybersecurity recruitment expert Bláthnaid Carolan said this is not enough to compete with private-sector salaries.
She recommended a salary of between €220,000 and €290,000 with a benefits package of €150,000-€200,000.
”This is an exceptional role, we really need to make it attractive to attract the right person.”
‘This is a very high-level role. There’s a lot of responsibility and its comparing what is out there, what are other companies.., again I will refer to the private sector salary and benchmarking range and that for us to get to get the top in-class candidate.”
Meanwhile Paul Larkin, head of Ward Solutions, told the committee the current budget for the NCSC should be boosted from €5m annually to €50m.
Mr Larkin’s company is assisting some branches of the HSE in repairing the damage from the cyber attack.
He said his budget assessment is based on a per capita sum following the UK budget of £2.9bn over a number of years. “That is 10 times what we spend at the moment.”
