David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for being in and out of the Dáil Chamber and committees. I have two or three questions on the public services card and JobPath. Mr. McKeon might have answered some earlier but I will ask specific questions I have.

In a previous response, Mr. McKeon said that there is no halo of infallibility around anybody. We can accept that, whether we are talking about Mr. McKeon, the Data Protection Commissioner, me or the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General. This is a serious issue. Our job is to probe reports which are prepared by statutory bodies. When the Comptroller and Auditor General produces a report, it is our job to put questions to the Accounting Officer who is subject to that report. In this case, we have had a report from the Data Protection Commission, which is also a statutory body. Reference was made to high-level findings. The Data Protection Commissioner sets out three high-level findings in the first few pages of her report. Mr. McKeon says that he does not agree with those findings on a point of law, which is fine and that is his right. The difficulty that we have is that either the Department is right or the Data Protection Commission is wrong. If the Data Protection Commissioner is wrong on three very high-level findings then, given that we are talking here about a statutory body whose job it is to protect and safeguard peoples' information and data and ensure it is used in an appropriate way, one way or the other we have a serious problem. It is not a question of a nuanced difference; it is fundamental. It is now being disputed on a point of law. I assume there will be an enforcement order that will be in line with the letter cited by Mr. McKeon. I imagine it will be appealed and ultimately, it will be dealt with in court. One way or the other, for us as Oireachtas Members, there will be profound fallout from this. This will have profound implications because somebody is wrong. We will have to wait and see which party is wrong.

There is one other issue with the public services card, which is important. We dealt with this with the Comptroller and Auditor General when the Data Protection Commissioner appeared before us. When the contract was first negotiated, it was on the basis of 3 million cards. Is that right?