Mr. Dermot Woods:

It is one of those complex parts of the Tele2 judgment. If one reads it strictly, it would not allow one to access retained data in order to locate somebody who has disappeared and who may have mental health issues and whose family knows that there is a risk of suicide. This is one of the routine uses for An Garda Síochána, in trying to locate people at short notice. One often comes across cases of elderly people who have Alzheimer's disease or dementia who have left their care home or their home and there is an urgent requirement to locate them. We have taken the view that it simply could not be understood that one could not put in place, where a person's life might be in imminent danger, an arrangement or mechanism to try to support locating that person. That is the key, if not the overwhelming use of the urgency procedure in respect of communications data by An Garda Síochána. It is used in efforts to locate people at short notice. It can also happen in cases where, for example, in a domestic violence situation a woman has been removed from the house by her husband who is abusing her. There have been cases of women who have been taken out of their homes being located in the boot of a car. The locating of such people is achieved by using location data from the last use of the phone. It is in those circumstances that there is an identified and justifiable need for an urgency procedure in order to make sure that data gardaí need in order to try to locate people can be accessed.