Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister mentioned legal advice from the Attorney General's office. I understood, when I raised this during parliamentary questions, that this had been farmed out to a third-party lawyer. Did this advice come directly from the Attorney General's office or an outside lawyer? I suppose it would be too much to ask who the lawyer was. We have not seen the legal advice. It may not be possible to do so because there may be some precedent for not publishing it. Can we at least have a synopsis of the legal advice? I have read the report carefully. It has been a while but I can read it again. It represents two years of research and I thought the legal reasoning was impeccable. How does the legal advice justify indefinite retention of data? Does it tell us that there is currently sufficient transparency and that the public is adequately informed about the use to which the data can be put? I am intrigued to find out if it provides justification in that regard.

The Data Protection Commission made a number of recommendations. Have any of those recommendations been adhered to yet? Is the Minister conscious that a number of other public bodies that were using the card have resiled from insisting that it be produced to grant people services? Her colleague, the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, went so far as to say that his officials had been vindicated in having initial doubts about the legal validity of the card. We saw only yesterday that under the childcare scheme announced recently by the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Zappone, use of the card will come into play. Since the online system will not be ready until next year, people will have to wait because they will have to produce the card to access the scheme. Regardless of the recommendations of the Data Protection Commission and the all-party committee that the Minister spoke about, and regardless of what was or was not said in the Dáil, the Data Protection Commission has found that, legally, the legislation introduced in 1998 does not give the powers that are being claimed. The commission clearly found that the legislation does not allow public bodies other than the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection to insist on compulsory production of the card and that is the fact.

The Minister was vague about the enforcement notice. She has not yet received the enforcement notice, which is somewhat surprising. Can she be a little clearer in this regard? If the Attorney General or the Attorney General's lawyer has told her that everything is perfectly in order and she receives an enforcement notice, it follows naturally that she will contest the notice.

The committee's recommendations about the use of the card outside the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection seem to say that it can be used for purposes other than social welfare provided an alternative system is in place which people can opt to use if they wish. We on this side of the House recognise that the public services card has been very useful. I know many people in my constituency who prefer to access social welfare and some other services by just producing the public services card. It is very convenient. Our difficulty is that it is compulsory. We get that it is compulsory for social welfare but it has been made compulsory for a range of other services for which the Data Protection Commissioner says there is no legal basis.

I remind the Minister of the 2016 report of the Comptroller and Auditor General, which stated that no business case had been made for the card. The report points out that in certain cases, the card seems to make it more difficult rather than easier to access services.

There is no obvious justification that the card must be produced in appeals for refusals of school transport.