Mr. Simon McGarr:

I have submitted some freedom of information requests relating to the individual health identifier project. It seems to me that there has been a rush to bring the project through. Following the Bara decision, there was an acknowledgment that further advices needed to be taken to ascertain what its consequences were. Regardless of what those advices might have been, there has been no hesitation, pause or slowdown in the implementation of the plan that was previously outlined. It seems to me that the right to compensation which has been introduced in the GDPR cannot be removed by individual member states, even if the administrative fines element is left in. On the question of whether the State is causing itself difficulties, I would argue that following the Bara judgment, the Health Identifiers Act does not comply with European law. If this turns out to be the case following the decision of the court, there will be grounds for a claim of compensation for actual financial loss or for non-material loss. Every single resident of the State - one will not need to be a citizen - will have a claim on the State in such circumstances. Regardless of whether a resident has a financial loss as a result of the breach of his or her rights, he or she will have a right to compensation for non-financial loss. The risk that the individual health identifier database poses to the Exchequer and to the relationship of trust between the State and its citizens is such that it would be very valuable for the matter to come under extremely close scrutiny between now and the implementation of the GDPR in May 2018. It seems to me that the approach taken by the HSE, and perhaps to a lesser extent by the Department of Health, is that because this matter which has been legislated for, it intends to carry on until someone tells it to stop. I am not sure whether that is the best way to deal with an extremely complicated matter where European law is moving forward and changing the grounds on which the risk assessment would be made.