John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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The witnesses do not have to answer this, but I am trying to be provocative about thinking and policy. When I talk about the tech companies, I am asking if it has ever emerged that the NTA has gone to them and said that it has a pile of data and has analysed it, and has asked if the tech companies can analyse it since they are experts at data management. It could ask what they would do with the data and how they would make it work better for Dublin. We have a colossal amount of data. Some of that data is collected by the four individual Dublin local authorities. When I was a member of South Dublin County Council, the registration plates coming in to and leaving South Dublin County were read. I could only say so much because some of that was going into Dún Laoghaire, or it was going into the city or to Fingal or wherever.

That is the kind of data harnessing I am talking about. There are people with a really high level of expertise that could do something with data that we cannot, and who could help solve those problems. It is not going to be a silver bullet but it is something that could contribute to it. If we have five of those companies based here, they have a phenomenal amount of information about people, including Dublin people, their movements, their habits and trends. We are not using any of it. That is what my question is about.