Dominic Hannigan (Labour)

I await with interest the outcome of the Council of Ministers meeting in Brussels. If reports are to be believed, at least some of the concerns expressed by Irish citizens in the last Lisbon referendum will be addressed. As someone who campaigned vigorously for the treaty, I was concerned about the issues raised with me on doorsteps and in supermarkets about taxation, neutrality and the loss of a full-time Commissioner. If the reports are true, the meeting will go a long way towards addressing the worries of many citizens. It is important that the information is disseminated clearly, preferably before the debate begins, because during the last referendum we were constantly chasing the fight in convincing people and countering misinformation.

As a new customer of Bord Gáis, I was very angry and disappointed to learn that my details and those of 75,000 other customers may have fallen into criminal hands because they were held without encryption on stolen laptop computers. It is not acceptable in this day and age that unencrypted data can be held on portable devices, but it is not the first time this happened. In April 2008, 10,000 records held on Bank of Ireland computers were stolen and last August a computer containing the records of 100,000 social welfare recipients was stolen from the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General. Last weekend we heard that 15 computers containing HSE data, two of which were unencrypted, were stolen in County Roscommon. Encrypting data does not take a lot of time or money, yet private sector organisations, semi-State bodies and State agencies are sloppy in their procedures for protecting data. If these organisations cannot get their act together, it is time for the Government to step in with fines or compensation. I call for a debate on this issue so that we can hear what the Government plans to do in terms of cajoling or requiring companies to protect sensitive and confidential information.