Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 2 November 2021

Joint Committee On Children, Equality, Disability, Integration And Youth

General Scheme of the Birth Information and Tracing Bill 2021: Discussion (Resumed)

Photo of Kathleen FunchionKathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome from the Data Protection Commission, DPC, Mr. Dale Sunderland, deputy commissioner and Mr. David Murphy, assistant commissioner. Once again I note that the purpose of this meeting is to engage with witnesses on the pre-legislative scrutiny of the birth information and tracing Bill 2021 and on any GDPR concerns with the provisions of the Bill. I acknowledge that this is the witnesses' second appearance before the committee as during their last appearance before the committee on 13 July, members were advised that the Data Protection Commission had recently received the data protection impact assessment, DPIA, from the Department and it was therefore suggested at the last meeting that the committee engage with the commission once again following detailed consideration of the impact assessment.

Before I call Mr. Sunderland to give his opening statement I need to advise witnesses on the issue of parliamentary privilege. As all the witnesses are appearing before the committee virtually, I need to point out that there is uncertainty if parliamentary privilege will apply to their evidence from a location outside of the parliamentary precincts of Leinster House. If they are therefore directed by me to cease giving evidence in respect of a particular matter, it is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

Witnesses will be allocated five minutes of speaking time and unfortunately, we need to stick strictly to this limit due to time constraints. We will then have question-and-answer sessions with each joint committee member. I invite Mr. Sunderland to deliver his opening statement and thank him again for his attendance today.

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