Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The first thing I want to ask the Minister about is the general data protection regulation, which he mentioned only in passing. This is a hugely important piece of work but it is being pushed through the Oireachtas, which is a mistake. Within the Seanad, we had a one-week turnaround from publication to discussion of the Bill. It deals with really important and substantial stuff. There were some 95 heads of the Bill and there are 162 sections. The Minister has known all along about the May deadline. As such, why is this now being pushed through at such a rate and without people having sufficient time to scrutinise it? I am afraid that public servants will be left to deal with all of this. Even experts around the Bill have said it is not right and that there is a lot more to be done. There is a bizarre set of exemptions and exclusions from the processing of special categories of personal data. They have said the Bill is unworkable. I am afraid that we are giving the public service unworkable legislation and expecting it to work with that. I am also concerned with the level of privatisation within the public service and what that implies for the amount of personal information foreign private companies will have on people. I am thinking about JobPath, Intreo and other services which are tendered to private foreign companies. How will we control that and is the Minister concerned?