Mr. Liam Herrick:

There are a couple of aspects to this. I refer to comments last week to the effect that journalists are just another category. Legally that is clearly not the case, and we need to emphasise very strongly that the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights is very clear that journalists must be afforded special protections given their central role in terms of democratic debate in society and the right to freedom of expression under the European Convention of Human Rights. That is the first point, and it is very clearly acknowledged by the Murray review.

Another question concerns where data of a personal nature is retained lawfully, for example by An Garda Síochána. The responsibility is on that body to control that data appropriately, to treat it with integrity and to not allow it to be disseminated in a way that would be unlawful or potentially prejudicial or damaging to the rights of individuals. That is the other side of the question. To return to Deputy O'Callaghan's earlier question, we must, when assessing the question of proportionality and restricting appropriately the circumstances and the type of data which can be retained, be mindful of the potential risk of misuse of data. Unfortunately, in recent years we have had a number of very damaging instances where State agencies that had lawfully retained data of a very broad nature have then disseminated or failed to control that data. That is the context here. We can look at it from the point of view of unethical journalistic behaviour. The more central issue is that a State agency which has data of the most serious kind, that potentially violate individual rights, has been very loose and casual about how that data is shared. That is the data retention point which goes to the type of tight controls and oversight we are calling for.