Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The reason Deputies Daly and Wallace brought forward their amendments and I brought forward mine is that it is quite easy to imagine the circumstances in which a data protection officer is doing his or her job and the data controller has his or her own reasons for trying to frustrate the process. The organisation he or she is responsible for may not be complying properly with data protection or may be abusing or misusing people's data or being careless in some respect. One can see how it would be in the interests of the data controller to frustrate, victimise or harass a data protection officer. That is very apparent.

I appreciate there is the Protected Disclosures Act, but that could be a cumbersome mechanism in some respects. If this all relates to data I do not see how a data protection officer could not say to the Data Protection Commissioner that he or she has an issue with data protection in the organisation in which he or she works and is being frustrated by his or her superior, that is, the data controller and is seeking an intervention and assessment. That is reasonable. There are probably a number of ways that could be done. The existing subsection on corrective powers could be used to facilitate that.

I will press my amendment, but I will not call a vote. I would appreciate if the Minister could consider that. There must be another mechanism beyond the protected disclosure legislation which would be potentially cumbersome and probably quite slow.