Mr. Denis Kelleher:

One could certainly make a good case that there are advantages to that, essentially for clarity. Data is now being processed right across the State. If there is a situation where the DPC could be called before any committee, she might find herself burdened with a significant workload, because there is no part of the State where personal data is not now being processed, both in the private and public sector. The only other question that might be raised on that is on expertise. As the Chairman has seen from the legislation, data protection is a particular area of law which requires its own particular expertise. While one may have concerns about whether it might become diffuse, there are obviously benefits to having a single point of contact. The DPC has to be accountable in some way. The question for the Oireachtas is how that accountability mechanism is managed.