Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

The Minister has made the case for me in respect of the lack of public confidence in the security of these cards. The Data Protection Commissioner has raised serious concerns. The commissioner has been waiting some time for responses to those concerns and she has insisted that those responses would be published. The public has still not seen those responses. If the system is secure and if it is properly based, why is there such a delay in providing those responses?

The Minister also raised the data sharing and governance Bill. The Minister seems to be implying that there was a requirement for the data sharing Bill to be passed and brought into law in order to provide the assurances to people that their data are safe. Is the Government putting the cart before the horse?

Apart from the Minister giving sympathy and assurances to people today, he has not been very specific about what exactly are those safeguards and the penalties in place in the event that officials abuse the rules around access of the data, as we have seen before from some officials in government Departments.

See this speech in context