Dr. Nessa Lynch:

I thank Deputy Costello for the point about oversight. Experts such as ourselves are all very well, but it is important to ensure that community members, in particular those who would probably be disproportionately affected by this, are properly consulted and are in partnership on some of the oversight mechanisms.

One point that has not come up today and that I am particularly interested in is how the proposed legislation would deal with children and young people. Obviously, children and young people have a particular human rights framework, which has a higher level of consideration around privacy, stigmatisation, vested interests, etc., so I think that is an important thing for the committee and the framers of the legislation to reflect on and whether children and young people would be entirely excluded or that there would be a very limited power. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child does contemplate some situations where public safety may be the primary concern, but there does need to be a different lens on the data of children and young people. I think that is a very important point.