Ms Clare Daly:

The independent review is very important. I do not think anybody is of the opinion that it should not be independent. I am sure the DPC itself does not think that. The days of organisations investigating themselves, as the Garda did previously, are gone. That goes without saying.

The bigger picture relates to where this is going in Europe. To follow on from a point made by Ms Sippel, I agree that we should not be looking at the main legislation. However, the EDPB has begun to consider how it operates. That may be the beginning of how it standardises its work. In June or July they brought everybody together for a meeting in Brussels to consider that issue and the whole area of where it is going. That is important because the standardisation of definitions will be important in maybe overcoming some of these problems of what I will call false comparisons.

I will take Spain as an example because is roughly the same in terms of size, although we have far more big data. It has a system of fining little and often. The system is set up at a very low level such that in an individual case the DPC can deal with it and impose a fine of €1,000 or whatever. The Irish situation legally prevents that from taking place. There is an obligation to go to an amicable resolution. The DPC is prevented from issuing fines in individual cases. One then has the debate centring on the Irish DPC being miles behind everybody else, but the figures are not there to make that comparison. At the moment, Emily O'Reilly is looking at what figures are kept by the commission and so on, which obviously has a role in this as well. That is important to note.