Mr. Aidan O'Driscoll:

Yes. The Office of the Data Protection Commission became the Data Protection Commission, DPC, under the new Act, and there is a subtle difference. In the transition from one to the other, detailed work was done on what were the responsibilities that would fall on the Data Protection Commission in Ireland in the context of the new GDPR. That was done and there was very rapid expansion in funding for the DPC which, as I indicated in my opening statement, went from €1.9 million in 2014 to €19.5 million in 2019. One would be hard put to find any other agency that has had a scale of increase in funding of that sort. That has mainly been around providing additional people with specific skills for the DPC because of the role the Deputy has just mentioned.

We are very conscious, first, that the DPC has a role in regard to advising all companies and proactively dealing with complaints and so on, and it received some 4,000 complaints in 2018, if I remember correctly. In regard to activities in Ireland, these are the normal DPC functions that one would expect. However, we are also very conscious, obviously, and the DPC is very conscious, of its responsibilities in the context of these companies being headquartered here. The Deputy was right to say the DPC has to take a lead role in the EU and is seen as the lead in the EU in that data protection regulation role.