Imelda Munster (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Mr. McKeon spoke about the assessment of organisational capacity to undertake the project. There are then the findings of the Data Protection Commissioner which the Department has chosen to ignore, having dismissed her rulings out of hand. An assessment of organisational capacity to undertake the project was never carried out. Now the Data Protection Commissioner says the Department is pretty much breaking the law by ignoring her rulings, while the general public thinks the Department made a pig's ear and complete hames of it from start to finish. There are serious concerns which the Data Protection Commissioner has flagged time and again. In hindsight, would it have been better for the Department to carry out an assessment of its capacity? The Office of the Data Protection Commissioner is the agency with statutory power and the commissioner is telling the Department that it is in breach of the law which it is choosing to ignore. It has got it all wrong.