Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 18 April 2018
Select Committee on Justice and Equality
Estimates for Public Services 2018
Vote 20 - An Garda Síochána (Revised)
Vote 21 - Prisons (Revised)
Vote 22 - Courts Service (Revised)
Vote 24 - Justice and Equality (Revised)
Vote 25 - Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (Revised)
Vote 41 - Policing Authority (Revised)
10:20 am
Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source
I will not repeat the points about GSOC but €300,000 is not enough, that is clear. The Policing Authority receives €600,000, which is double that of GSOC. I would go so far as to say that the whole of the extra €600,000 allocated to the Policing Authority should instead be given to GSOC to allow it to do the job that it wants to. The points have been made about that already.
I have three quick questions. First, on direct provision, the Estimate for 2018 seems to be the same as the spend for 2017. Is that because the Government expects the same numbers of asylum seekers or is it the case that contracts have been negotiated with the private operators who make a lot of money from this service regardless of the numbers of people in the system? What is the story with that?
Will extra funds be made available to revamp the coronial service? Reform has been in the pipeline for 20 years and is badly needed and long overdue.
My last questions are about the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner. The Minister has said €4 million has been made available and that staff numbers are due to increase by 50%. That sounds like a lot and is certainly something about which I would like to hear more. Frankly, I do not consider such measures as being anything near enough in the context of the general data protection regulation, GDPR. I ask the Minister to consider the fact that the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner will now be the lead supervisory authority in cases involving companies such as Google and Facebook. Also, as many as 89% of Facebook users are served by Facebook Ireland. The Office of the Data Protection Commissioner in Ireland will be the main regulator of how Facebook uses and shares the data of its users. How can the office do such work with an extra €4 million? I have not even mentioned the more general responsibilities of the office under the GDPR in monitoring and policing public and private usage. The sum does not strike me as being anything near enough.
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