Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

In considering that point, I and the Government need to take account of a range of factors that would result from any decision to extend the commission's lifespan. The biggest concern for me is the transfer of the archive to my Department. I have set out on a number of occasions how my Department has undertaken a very significant amount of work to prepare for the transfer of the archive, in order that we can properly address the subject access requests that we are going to get and provide significant personal information to people who have personal information within the archive. We all regard that as a positive step. One of the considerations we have to look at is that, if the commission's lifespan is extended for the purposes of an investigation by the DPC or other bodies, in order to be able to answer that investigation the commission would have to have its archive because the DPC and other bodies would be looking at the material contained within the archive.