Michael Colreavy (Sligo-North Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister knows I have serious concerns about this very expensive, badly designed and badly managed project, the aim of which is to solve a very simple problem. I have asked why the State has spent so much money on designing a system that is unique to this country. What business problem will be resolved by the use of this system? It is a simple question. The Minister has listed five or six business objectives, but nobody has explained what business processes will change to deliver those objectives. They are more like aspirations that could be listed than business problems to be solved.

11 o’clock

I cannot understand why we have spent so much, and relied so much, on one firm of management consultants to advise - I use the word "advise" in quotes - on this project from the very beginning right through to the preparation of the functional and technical design and requests for and submission of tenders. This is a licence to print money. I described it as the gift that keeps on giving for management consultants. I am sorry that I and the Dáil have to spend so much time on something that should be very simple, the setting up of a postcode system. It is ill-conceived. A postcode in this country is an excellent idea. It should have been simple, straightforward and inexpensive. Principally, it should have been inexpensive. We have allowed those who have commercial considerations to convince us that we need something more complex that will continue to give money to the company. I believe it is wrong.

Deputy Catherine Murphy and I have tabled more or less the same amendments on the data protection aspects of this legislation . It is establishing a very dangerous precedent. That the normal data protection legislation does not cover this and we have to incorporate it into primary legislation is precedent. Government-generated data will be sold off to companies in Ireland, Europe or throughout the world, which may then resell that data to other companies, yet this legislation is intended to protect data in this country. That will not and cannot happen. It all stems from the fact that we decided, on the advice of management consultants, to introduce a complex system where complexity was neither necessary nor desirable, and it will not do what the Minister says it says on the tin. It has not been demonstrated to me that it will do what it says on the tin. It is the gift that will keep on giving to management consultants. People will pay big bucks for that data and this legislation will not stop them from reselling or misusing the data they have purchased.

I will oppose this legislation at every stage in the process because the substantive amendments that I and others have tabled have not been accepted. Even had those amendments on the data protection element been made, the very creation of the system is opening up a precedent whereby Government-sponsored data can be bought by private companies anywhere in the world and resold to whomever they wish with no controls over the dissemination or use of that data.

I could go on for an hour about this, but I do not see the point. I have raised these issues before and pointed out my serious concerns. Time will prove that my concerns and the concerns of Deputy Catherine Murphy are well-founded, and it will cost the State a lot of money to clean up the mess this will create.

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