Mr. Simon McGarr:

As Dr. Logue has said, whether or not this Bill passes, if it is in breach of the GDPR the public authorities have a duty to apply the European Union law and ignore this national law, where it is in breach. That is the first step. If the public authority does not recognise that, then it is liable for two things. It is liable to being sued by the individual to get access to his or her rights and is liable to being found in breach of the GDPR by the Data Protection Commission and could be fined up to €1 million per instance. Those are the two administrative responses to a failure by the institutions of the State to follow European Union law.

If the State is in breach of European Union law and refuses to take action, it is also open to citizens to make a complaint to the European Commission about the failure to comply with European Union law. It is open to the Commission to take a case against Ireland and eventually, as we have seen with our environmental issues, the State could end up with fines accruing unless and until such time as Ireland brings itself back into line with EU law.