Mr. Derek Priestley:

I will discuss head 22. I thank the Senator for his support on it. The words we find offensive, to focus in on them, are "any prescribed reason". This seems very broad and unnecessary. With regard to dismissal by the President, the Senator might remember one's commission goes all the way up from the Department of Defence to the Minister, to Cabinet and then the office of An tUachtarán. There is a piece of paper that we all share, which is the commission itself. The process of dismissing somebody must involve this commission. To use the phrase, and not to be in any way flippant, you are commissioned and you are decommissioned, as such. This is why when any of us retire or resign or, after the enactment of the Bill, are dismissed, there is a process involving An tUachtarán. This is historical and I would not draw too much inference into it, to be perfectly honest. It is just the way the process works. Because it is already referred to in the Act that one receives one's commission from An tUachtarán, there is continued reference to it.

With regard to data sharing, I draw a distinction again between the idea of intelligence and national security. In answer to an earlier question, I pointed out there is a very different focus. As the Senator might know, intelligence is very different to something we can act on. It is information, and where we get it and how actionable it might be is questionable. We are speaking about more criminal matters. There are data protection issues in this regard. We are pointing towards the lack of a mechanism that is formally shared.

As we said in our opening statement, we require a mechanism so that An Garda Síochána can legitimately talk to the provost marshal. This is what we are pointing towards. To read into Senator Clonan's question, we are not talking about intelligence. There is a national intelligence committee in place now.