Ms Helen Dixon:

I thank Deputy Durkan for his comments. His question related to the implementation of data matching and sharing projects. He asked whether, with a system that has so many steps in it, actual implementation can occur in health research that is in the public interest. Health research concerns the processing of sensitive personal data, which means it is inevitable that there will be robust processes involved to ensure the necessary analysis is done to underpin the lawfulness of any data sharing or matching that occurs. However, I do not think that data protection needs to be an impediment to that analysis happening. The Deputy is correct to say that there could be pitfalls in the implementation in terms of these projects. However, those pitfalls could centre around data quality, interoperability assistance and other issues. A big and complex infrastructure is necessary to underpin health research, but I do not think data protection is an impediment. In fact, this set of laws will underpin carrying out this research in a way that ensures public trust is engendered and maintained as it is conducted.