Peter Power (Limerick East, Fianna Fail)

Deputy Sherlock is right to try to strike a balance between the rights of the citizen and the rights of an accused person. However, if one were to disclose to an individual who is under investigation by the Garda for a criminal offence that data relating to them has been requested, one would be effectively telling the person that he or she is under investigation. That would inevitably compromise the chances of the Garda concluding its investigation and bringing a successful prosecution. I can offer an example. Unfortunately, it is all too common these days that a contract assassin would travel from one part of the country to another to carry out a hit. If he made a telephone call to the head of a criminal gang to tell him he is on his way to that part of the country and if there were an obligation to inform him in the course of a criminal investigation that a request to disclose data relating to him was being made by the Garda Síochána, he would immediately know he was under investigation. Therefore, the investigation would be compromised immediately. I do not think we can go down that road.

The fact that gardaí may request information in those circumstances will not in itself lead to the prosecution of an individual. One can never say that a request led to the ultimate prosecution of a hitman. It would depend on a range of other pieces of information. As I mentioned earlier, CCTV information, DNA information and a plethora of different types of information are available to the Garda. It is not practical to draw a connection between a request for retained data and a successful prosecution, leaving aside the fact that the information set out in this section is fully and completely in accordance with what is required of the country in the directive.

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