Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. In her presentation, she gave much detail about the 1990s but we skipped very quickly from 2017 to 2019, during which time many things were happening. I have looked back at my own engagement with the Minister on this issue at that time, when many others also engaged with her. In December 2017, I urged a period of slowing down and caution. I asked that the Department would try to stop digging in respect of the public services card and creating trouble for us as a nation so as to avoid leaving us as hostages to fortune. As an investigation had begun at that point, it would have seemed a good time to slow down but instead the Department doubled down on the roll-out. In February 2018, when questions were being asked, Mr. Duggan from the Department said he did not believe the fact that an investigation had begun necessarily meant the DPC had concerns. In December 2018, the Minister stated:

I cannot allow the Senator put on the record of this House that the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner has grave concerns with the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection. It does not.

The Minister had received the draft report at that time, which noted concerns about the retention of information, about which I will talk some more. The Minister can surely understand why giving a sense of the mood of the Attorney General's advice or what she feels might have been said is not satisfactory to us. We have been given assurances as to the general mood or tenor of an engagement that have not been backed up and which have effectively been contradicted by later revelations of the grave concerns raised, to which the Minister had access and we did not. In 2018 a new contract was signed for a new roll-out while this investigation was under way. These are serious concerns because many decisions were taken not to exercise even a modicum of caution for any period, not only as regards the contracts that had already been signed, but the new contracts as well.

I will group a few of the findings and go back to some others. Finding No. 3 stated "the blanket, indefinite retention of personal data consisting of documents and information (other than the applicant’s photograph and signature) which are originally collected for the purposes of identity authentication in the context of SAFE 2 registration is in contravention of DEASP’s obligations". Some 3.2 million people have gone through the SAFE 2 process and satisfied the Minister as to their identity. Not everyone has gone through the process but that is a separate issue. According to Mr. Duggan, the PSC is the token which shows that someone has gone through that process and successfully verified his or her identity to a substantial level of assurance. The Department satisfied itself as to their identity. Why is it retaining their documentation?