John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have a different point of view. I believe you have too much information. It concerns me greatly that the State is collecting and sharing information, given what I know about what is generally described as a failure of the system or systemic failures whereby people are able to access information they should not be able to access. It also concerns me given the example of Tusla. I am not asking you to comment on an individual case but on the general case. It is shocking that what we discovered Tusla had on file about individuals - not just one but a number of individuals - was totally concocted. Were it not for a mistake being made which led to the individual seeing this information, those who knew about the information could have considered that he or she was a criminal. I worry, therefore, about the amount of information that the State has on individuals, to be honest. I particularly worry about agencies such as Tusla, because nowadays anybody can access all sorts of information about an individual. If the State collects it in an organised fashion, I do not believe it should have the information unless it has robust audit trails and IT systems. It concerns me greatly. I have seen some of the files that were created, obviously deliberately, where the individual did not even know they existed.

The other issue is the action that is taken as a result of the discovery of information. I will give a comparison and use my experiences with the Data Commissioner in two cases. One concerned the HSE and public access to files relating to people's medical records and so forth. I made a complaint to the Garda and I made a complaint to the Data Commissioner. I have not heard anything back since. When that loose, hard copy information about patients' records was available for the public to see I did not see the type of concern I would have expected. In comparison, the reaction of the Data Commissioner to using your database at election time, which is a concern for all of us, would be over the top in my opinion. I respect people's privacy. I am simply making the point that there is an imbalance in terms of how the State reacts to different things that happen. It is easy to act or react in a public way against a Member of the House, because we all scurry around the place trying to ensure that what we do is within the law, yet what happens in respect of bigger issues such as the Tusla files, the HSE files or other information relating to breath tests and so forth? We do not know. Gathering and sharing information is a very sensitive area.

I am not convinced we have the type of robust IT systems or understanding required to police it, if this legislation is passed.