Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman and hope I will be brief. It is unusual for me to be at a meeting where a body has got such negative responses and submissions compared with previous ones. To my mind this is a sign there must be something wrong with it. For Ms Dixon to come in and give the committee such a strident defence of it shows there is something wrong with how the system is working across the board. I take on board, however, what Ms Dixon has said on the figures given by the earlier contributors, and that they could be misplaced.

I was looking at the executive summary of the commission's annual report. It says "Over 60% (2,186) of complaints lodged with the DPC in 2020 were concluded". The number of complaints received by the DPC was 4,660. This only works out at 46% and I wonder where this discrepancy comes from. Maybe I am reading it wrong or not reading it right. There is an anomaly there in the DPC's own figures that I can see. It is difficult to see where that arises from.

Perhaps Ms Dixon could address that.

One of the previous contributors spoke about the ways of addressing some of the problems. I take from what Ms Dixon said that she does not accept there are any problems. It was said that the Department has the power to make regulations, that under the data Act the conditions could be clarified or that Ms Dixon, as commissioner, could an hold a briefing for representative bodies and interested people and outline how she deals with complaints and things like that.

How does the commissioner view those issues - issues of clarification and clarifying the role for everybody - because to my mind, and I am no expert on this and I come to it relatively cold, there does appears to be a problem. Whether that problem is totally one way or the other, which is not usually the case, there appears to be a problem.