Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

Nobody suggests that every householder in Ireland is under surveillance or anything like that. It comes down to how serious crime is defined and what oversight is provided. What some people might deem to be a peaceful but robust protest, other people would deem to be kidnapping and so on. The problem is that we have weak monitoring and oversight of the surveillance powers that exist, which in itself emboldens rogue elements and facilitates bad practice. There is not judicial oversight in all circumstances. Senior gardaí can self-authorise where they claim it is an emergency.

On the judicial involvement, we have no records. We cannot say with certainty because the records and reports produced by the judges are very limited. Digital Rights Ireland has pointed out that one of the judges did a very thorough job but in general the reports are on one page and they repeat a standard formula - nothing to see here.

The provisions under the 1993 Act are even worse. The judge carries out a review of thousands of data records every year and completes that exercise in one day, visiting McKee Barracks, the Garda general headquarters in the Phoenix Park, the Department of Justice and Equality, and the Revenue. None of the reports has given any information on the number of requests and their purpose, as happens in the UK and even in the United States.

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