Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am not sure I have many questions but I have a couple of points which I want to make so that I can put them on the record for the report. I ask that our witnesses respond to them. I am conscious of the European Court of Human Rights impact which was briefly mentioned in the previous session, particularly around judicial warrants or approval. I believe that question may already have been asked but I would ask for information around the international experience which would be useful.

I found the chilling effect points made by several of the witnesses very interesting in that this was not necessarilyy mentioned in the earlier session.

On the reference databases, we absolutely need that clear legislation as to what it can and cannot be used for, particularly in the international context which brings me to a question for our friends from the Department of Justice. Does this legislation require and EU Technical Regulation Information System, TRIS, referral and has such a referral been done, particularly if we are going to be trying to access international and European databases?

A further point which has been made by many of the witnesses which was not made in the previous session was around the proprietary and black box nature of many of these software systems. The point was made about transparency being essential but how can an accused challenge with ease in court without having that level of transparency?

We have had codes of practice for other technology. They need to be dealt with as much as possible in the primary legislation. We talk a great deal about policing by consent, so surely any code of practice should involve an extensive review and extensive public consultation. That public consultation should be baked into the legislation.

Again, I do not necessarily have any questions. The submissions have all been very clear. I just wanted to underline those points. For the remainder of the time, I invite the witnesses to react to those points, and in particular the question for the Department.