Mr. Muiris O'Connor:

There may be a misunderstanding. If the app was set out with a scope and purpose confined to exposure notification at the start then the advice from the European body would be relevant. Instead, we set the app up very deliberately and in public, through the data protection information notices and the data protection impact assessment, as a pandemic response tool with a number of functions. We worked very closely with Mr. Lowry, across Government and with our data protection office so that was understood. The functions are entirely separate. One can turn off exposure notifications, one does not have to check and one does not have to read the update information. One can choose to carry any or all of those functions.

Due to the vaccine roll-out and the fact the central database was established in April and that the HSE was deploying vaccines as best as possible before that, we had to issue, as the committee knows, almost 1 million paper certificates. The digital wallet facility on the app is very convenient. It is completely at the discretion of the individual. It is completely private where what every individual does is concerned but is a facility to have a digital version of one's certificate. That was part of our obligations, as we understood them, under EU law.