Peter Power (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)

To answer Deputy Flanagan's question, the retention periods for data vary significantly across the European Union. This reflects, as the Deputy observed, the discretion available to each member state, which in turn reflects the fact that each state has a different court system, judicial system and investigative system. The French system, for example, is very different from ours and cases tend to be processed much quicker. The Italian system, on the other hand, can involve a very elongated investigative process. The retention period in that country is 29 months which reflects the extensive investigative period. Our system of constitutional rights and the rights of accused persons is so highly developed that our investigative times tend to be longer than the norm, which is reflected in the data retention period. I do not have time to list the data for all member states but I can provide the Deputy with that information. In short, the retention period for telephony data ranges from six months in Austria to 29 months in Italy.

I accept that Deputy Sherlock makes his point in good faith. We are agreed on the need for data retention but disagreement arises on the question of where the balance lies. I accept that the majority of requests are made within a three-month period. However, one must balance that against the very small cost to extend the retention of the information from the 12-month period proposed by the Labour Party to the 24-month period proposed by the Government. That cost is relatively minuscule when one considers that most of the costs are on the capital side and are front-loaded. One must balance the two. I am concerned that we do not allow a situation to arise, if we were to accept the Labour Party proposal, where that balance would ultimately fall in favour of a criminal such that he or she could not be convicted because a vital element of evidence is not available to the Garda.

Moreover, we must accept that investigations that depend on electronic data, DNA evidence, CCTV footage and other modern forms of technology tend to be slow and painstaking. They proceed incrementally depending on certain items of information that come to the attention of the Garda. Sometimes, as in the case of several gangland crimes, including gangland murders, it can take a long time for the information to come into the possession of the Garda. It may transpire, for example, that the Garda, having brought a prosecution to a certain level, comes into the possession of information 18 months after a crime was committed which leads them to seek data, such as mobile telephone records, which could place a new suspect in a particular place at a particular time. If gardaí in that situation were unable to obtain that information because we had reduced the limit from 24 months to 12 months, and if they subsequently failed to bring about a prosecution, we would not have done a good day's work in this House. We must balance that consideration, which is based on the advice of gardaí with responsibility in this area, against the small additional cost of retaining the information for an additional period of 12 months. The balance lies heavily in favour of retaining a period of 24 months rather than 12.

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