Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 5 July 2017

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality

General Scheme of the Data Protection Bill 2017: Discussion (Resumed)

9:00 am

Photo of Clare DalyClare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will be brief. I am very sorry that I missed the start of the meeting. I could not get out of an engagement. I believe the witnesses have made a really compelling case for why we as a committee should move away from the sort of patchwork quilt approach that is being taken to this legislation at the moment. I was struck by the comment that any law we devise should be accessible to the public. In its present form, the way in which this massive project is being structured is kind of beyond accessibility. In that sense, we have to take serious note.

I was struck by Mr. McGarr's comment about the Executive reluctance to absorb recommendations of the EU. He is very polite. That is an incredibly beautiful way of saying that we are on a collision course and are out of kilter with the rest of Europe on some of these issues. One hand of the State is potentially doing one thing around the health indicators and so on, meanwhile regulation and rights are going in the other direction. We have to do something. It could be possible to deal with how that collision is to be addressed in this legislation to an extent I do not really have a question but just wish to say that. Without putting the witness on the spot or in a collision with the executive types, he is saying we need to reorder the way we have approached this. We need to look at the repeal of the present Acts and then perhaps write this general data protection regulation, GDPR, as a form of full document with a domestic Irish consideration. That would be far simpler, along with some other stand-alone regulation. I think it would be a much cleaner approach. Is that in essence what the witness is saying?

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