Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am glad that this is not being put to a vote today at 4 p.m. It is an example of how this is evolving. My understanding at the meeting of the Business Committee only two or three hours ago was that we would be voting on it. I am glad we are not because it is time to pause for thought. This is not an insignificant issue. It is a very important issue at the intersection of the Legislature, the judicial and policing system and the media. It is important that we get our part in that mix right. I am glad there is a commission of investigation, the creation of which the Green Party will support. The reason things have moved on is that the Tánaiste appears to be willing to accept changes to the terms of reference. I listened with interest to what Deputies Jim O'Callaghan, Jonathan O'Brien, Clare Daly, Brendan Howlin and others said in that regard. It is no harm to pause for thought in terms of how the investigation will work. For that reason more than for any other, I am glad we have a little time to think and reflect on this.

What Deputy Jonathan O'Brien said is true. Deputy O'Callaghan's amendment to the effect that there should be early contact with members of Government was broadened by Deputies O'Brien and Howlin to refer to Members of the Oireachtas. That is valid. If Deputy McGuinness was one of the people involved in this, there may have been others. As such, why would we restrict it to Government? I was particularly interested in listening to Deputy Daly's arguments to hear that it should also be extended to include those other incidents of gardaí claiming they too were abused in the process of being identified and targeted as whistleblowers. That is one of the interesting things the Tánaiste might consider in the next few days in the context of how broad this goes.

I want to put another twist or consideration on the matter. I was at a very interesting meeting last week on digital surveillance organised by the Goethe-Institut in Dublin and attended by a range of people interested in digital privacy and the surveillance we are subjected to. I do not know all the finest details of the role of a commission of investigation but I am very glad it will be led by a Supreme Court judge. We have respect for our Judiciary here unlike in some other jurisdictions. The question appears to me to be how far this will go in terms of whether we are giving the commission of investigation the ability, as Deputy McGrath has implied, to look at the phone records of Deputies. To answer the questions that have been raised, that level of investigation might be required. There are difficulties around that. We saw, even today, how inadvertently the raising of a certain issue in the public interest can bring a person's name to public notice in a way that is disadvantageous to him or her. As such, we have to be careful about this. This causes me to question some of our legislation around digital surveillance and how we manage such a process.

Dr. Dennis Jennings, the former head of computer science at UCD, was at that digital surveillance meeting and presented an idea with which some might disagree but which I consider to have a great deal of merit. He said that in setting up digital systems, as we have with our phones and computers, we must have a clear mechanism to review and oversee the guardians who review the digital material in the first place.

We must have a clear and transparent system whereby somebody is looking at the digital data relating to us all. This could affect any citizen as well as any Member of this House. All of those types of data should be loggable, accessible and transparent within safe judicial systems.

This might seem an abstract point that is outside the bounds of the debate, but it is very important if we are looking to investigate who contacted who in this case. Members of the media are historically very sensitive about revealing their sources, who spoke to them, when they spoke and the nature of the conversation, and they will be interested to know how such an investigation is carried out. This is not a clear-cut issue. There probably is scope for a longer-term project here, but it is relevant to the matters we are discussing because we are talking about investigating the contacts between people and the only way to do that is to check telephone records, e-mails, computer logs and so on. I noted Deputy Daly's point that there are concerns to address if the Garda has control of that surveillance-type system. Mr. Justice Charleton has a very difficult job to do, no matter what brief we give him, and how he manages it will be an interesting test case in some ways. I hope consideration is given in devising the terms of reference of the inquiry to the mechanisms for investigating the types of data to which I referred.

I take the Minister absolutely at her word when she talks about the need for reform of the system. Everybody on both sides of the House recognises that our judicial and policing system is in need of reform. We have seen the issues that arose regarding the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission, the subsequent retirement of the former Commissioner, Martin Callinan, and the resignation of the former Minister for Justice and Equality, Alan Shatter. One of my concerns is that we do not have a Secretary General in the Department in the midst of this process.

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