Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

While going along with that and taking on board the Minister's point that data protection officers might have recourse to the protected disclosures legislation, there might be some overlap in some cases. They might make protected disclosures to bring themselves within the scope of this Bill. We think it would be preferable to avoid the need for them to artificially bring themselves under the protected disclosures legislation if they could get protection under this Bill. That is what we are trying to do.

Part of the confusion is that Part 5 is a new Bill. A second Bill has been inserted into the Bill to give effect to the criminal justice directive. Due to the fact that the GDPR does not apply to the criminal justice system, not everything is transposed and so on. We are trying to give data protection officers specific protection against victimisation and being penalised for doing their job. We are allowed to go beyond the directive. That is what we are trying to do and it is necessary because by going beyond the directive we are bringing them in line with the GDPR. That is all that is being sought. We will withdraw the amendment, but if the Minister does not address the issue at a later Stage with something better we will come back with this.