James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Kelly. My next question is to Mr. Kelleher. I put the same question to him at the meeting on Monday but I am afraid I must ask it again in public session. It is a concern to the committee and to me, as Chairman, that the legislation was presented to us with only a couple of days to go prior to its enactment. There was a pre-legislative scrutiny waiver request, which the committee refused and, hence, we are here today. I am thankful to everybody in the room for making this happen.

In his opening statement, Mr. Kelleher stated that the Government approved the drafting of the general scheme of the Bill on 31 May. We know the data retention directive was annulled in 2014, arising from the 2011 legislation. We know that in January 2019, a decision of the High Court led to an appeal relating to the legislation. We know a preliminary opinion was delivered a year ago and the final, official opinion of the European Court of Justice came in April. Despite all of that, it was not until 31 May, some two months after the final decision, that we got approval to start drafting legislation. It strikes me that we would not be in this sort of whirlwind, end-of-term race to get this over the line had we started at any stage prior to that. As some of the witnesses suggested in their opening statements, the information has been out there for some time. I have outlined the timeline and others made the point that the need for action was not unexpected. How are we in a situation in which we are dealing with the legislation in this manner?