Mr. Finbarr Heslin:

There are different legal templates for this across Europe. Ireland has chosen to have a number of independent databases. This meets competition requirements. Computer systems are so advanced now that a centralised portal would be very quick and easy. We coded a centralised system and presented it to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the other databases last year. However, we cannot make the other databases tie into it. Obviously, they have concerns. Were the Department to host a centralised system, though, we have already written the coding that would be plugged into the four databases. This would provide the centralised look-up that the Senator is suggesting. That system is in place in many other countries and there is little impediment, other than desire, to introducing it in Ireland.