Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am not trying to dismiss the concerns of Deputies Wallace and Jonathan O'Brien. I, too, have legitimate concerns, particularly about the way data are being handled in the private sector. There have been recent examples of problems in that area. Deputy Wallace has done a lot of very positive work on the penalty points issue, for example. Imagine a situation where a driver would not give his or her consent to have penalty points information shared between one arm of the State and another, namely, between the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport and An Garda Síochána. No one would want this but we could have a situation whereby an individual does not consent to have his or her penalty points data shared between An Garda Síochána, via a garda on the side of the road, and the driver licensing authority. Under the amendment that Deputy Wallace has asked me to accept, we could have a ridiculous scenario where an individual does not give consent to or seeks to withdraw consent from one public body sharing information with another. We could also have another ridiculous scenario in which a person who is not tax compliant does not give consent to the sharing of his or her data between agencies of the State. Bodies such as the Departments of Employment Affairs and Social Protection and Agriculture, Food and the Marine as well as other State bodies responsible for payments would not have access to that information. This could also include the sheriff's office, the Companies Registration Office, CRO, and any other arm of the State that could be affected by financial fraud. Revenue is currently in a position to share information but under this provision the ridiculous situation would arise whereby we tie the hands of gardaí on the side of the road, the Revenue Commissioners and so on. I cannot accept these amendments on that basis.