Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)

The Minister of State offered the example of a Mr. Ryan, so I will continue to use that example. He also referred to the requirements of the directive and the terms under which data must be submitted to the Commission. I accept that point. However, if we are discussing the rights of this Mr. Ryan in respect of whom disclosure is requested, under the Bill Mr. Ryan can only find out if a disclosure request has been made by first making a request to the Data Protection Commissioner on the basis that he believes that personal data has been accessed. If the data relating to Mr. Ryan has been accessed, there is no analysis after the fact. If nothing arises from the disclosure and Mr. Ryan is innocent, there is nothing in the analysis thereafter that allows Mr. Ryan to know that a disclosure request was made about him by one of the designated officers. The reporting mechanism to the Commission does not allow for that either.

We are trying to ensure that if Mr. Ryan is not prosecuted, a report under this section will contain details of the numbers of prosecutions actually commenced as a result of investigations to which requests related and detailed justification for any significant excess in numbers of requests. If no prosecution is taken against Mr. Ryan, it could be argued that it is an excess. That must be quantifiable as well. I know I am repeating myself but I am trying to strike a balance between what is appropriate and inappropriate use of the disclosure request in the first instance to ensure that in the case of people who are innocent parties and against whom disclosure requests are made, the State, because of a reporting procedure, 12 months after the enactment of the Bill would be able to note an inordinately large amount of disclosure requests from a particular source about a certain person where no action has arisen from them. It is right to have a method by which we can question that process.

I might be overly pedantic about this but we must prevent nefarious use of the law. That is my objective.

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