Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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I do not know the answer to that question. I know the work was being done on it. I will make a small confession to members which I am sure they will understand. In so far as any reports may be available it will be my practice on the weekend before the meeting to read them. I am not aware of a report yet coming to us. It may be that I will have a report by the weekend.

I will deal briefly with the right to be forgotten. As a policy issue we support the right to be forgotten.

Moreover, the official in my Department who has been working on both the data protection regulation and the directive did extraordinary and Trojan work during the European Presidency. We made substantial advances and probably made greater progress than we had anticipated. There are issues in respect of the right to be forgotten that are being teased out. There are the obligations the regulation seeks to impose to ensure a right to be forgotten can be respected and that the necessary action is taken to remove material. In the context of dealing with the web, there is, of course, the enormous difficulty that material can be reproduced and transferred. There are some concerns that, for example, a particular web-based operation may do its very best to comply, but something unfindable may re-emerge and such operations should not be unfairly penalised as a consequence. It is an area of some complexity, but continuing work is taking place on it, to which the State is contributing.