John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Last week delegates were very clear on the difficulties they had in understanding the legislation. There is no primary legislation. Mr. Duggan referred to the main Act of 2005 and the consolidation Act since. There have been numerous amendments and Mr. Duggan spoke about the complexity of the legislation. He said that, as is usual with such administrative consolidations, it came with the usual caveats of errors, omissions and cautions against using the text in court proceedings. That is exactly the point the delegates made last week. Even with the consolidation, they found going through the Act very difficult and that there was a lack of clarity.

The heading on Mr. Lowry's presentation includes a reference to the "Draft General Scheme of the Data Sharing & Governance Bill".

Is there something Mr. Lowry is trying to tell us? Is there a scheme to put this on a more regular footing, that the future management of SAFE, SAFE2 and the cards and so forth, would be best served by primary legislation dealing with its future use and management? Has that been considered? From 2005 it has evolved but in recent years, since the decision of 2013, which the Department said would be rolled out by 2016, we have been behind the curve. Is that what Mr. Lowry was trying to tell us with the title?