Mr. Brendan Gleeson:

All I can say, and perhaps it is for good reason, is that there is paranoia about data protection. The burden is always with the public authority to justify the release or sharing of the data, and the power tends to be with the individual. A few issues arise. If someone is a member of the racing regulatory body or a turf club member, the turf club can insist that the next time one wants to be licensed by it, one can tick a box and agree to share one's data with Horse Racing Ireland, HRI, as a condition of one's membership or licence. That is fine. There is no difficulty then with sharing data once the individual has ticked that box.

The issue arises with regard to historical data. If a person has provided data in the past and it has not been indicated to him or her all the purposes for which this data might be used, he or she has a fairly strong hand when it comes to determining whether this data can be handed over. I do not believe this will be a real issue but there is justifiable paranoia about data protection now for various reasons and it is critically important that we do not jump into something, so to speak, without providing for it adequately in the legislation. I am not qualified to elaborate on the detail but whatever we do regarding data protection will be guided by the legal requirements as determined by the Attorney General's office, and we will take her guidance.