Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak on the Vehicle Registration Data (Automated Searching and Exchange) Bill 2018. This legislation, which was initiated in the Seanad, gives effect to Council decisions 2008/615/JHA and 2008/616/JHA of 23 June 2008 relating to co-operation between European Union states, Iceland and Norway for sharing vehicle registration data to assist in combatting cross-border crime and, in particular, terrorism. The co-operation is very welcome. The decisions are commonly referred to as the Prüm decisions and despite the upcoming general data protection regulation, GDPR, due to come into effect on 25 May next the Data Protection Act 1988 will apply in this case. That exclusion is interesting, given that Deputies are trying to make themselves familiar with the general data protection regulation as it affects us.

Section 2 of the Bill provides for the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport to be the national contact point in Ireland as the Department is the owner of the vehicle registration data in the State. Section 3 outlines the provisions for the automated searching of this data in the national vehicle and driver file, NVDF, and subsection (1) states that a national contact point of another country will be granted access to the NVDF "with power to conduct automated searches in an individual case". Subsection (2) provides for the type of information which may be used for these searches, which are the full vehicle registration number or the vehicle identification number, VIN.

Section 4 provides for the automated searching of data held by designated states where our national contact point, the Minister, would request the relevant state’s contact point for access to data through automated searches. Subsection (4) states that the data processed may only be used for the purposes for which the data have been supplied unless authorisation is given for "other purposes". Authorisation would, therefore, be needed to provide information to the Courts Service, the Director of Public Prosecutions, An Garda Síochána etc.

Section 7 outlines the functions of the Data Protection Commissioner in the context of the Bill, as Deputy Stanley referred to, which include carrying out the random checks as described in subsection (3), permission to exchange relevant data with their counterpart in a designated state as laid out in subsection (6), and the right to request that their counterpart carry out checks on the lawfulness of processes in their state as laid out in subsection (7). The explanatory memorandum accompanying the Bill mentions the general data protection regulation and the policing directive and indicates that the policing directive “explicitly states that it does not apply to Prüm, and that the data protection measures prior to the Policing Directive and the GDPR will continue to apply to the Prüm Decisions”. For Ireland, this means under the Data Protection Act 1988.

Sections 9 and 10 set out the provisions for the duties of data controllers and authorised officers. Section 9(3) and (4) provide for the recouping of damages because of inaccuracy of data received or sent. This part of the Bill worries me. We have a situation currently in Ireland where the Garda cannot effectively access information on a driver’s licence to ascertain whether the driver has a full licence or a learner permit. Concerned constituents, including Ms Susan Gray of PARC road safety group, have been in touch with me recently. They have been informed that if a member of An Garda Síochána wants to know the details and status of a driver's licence, such as whether the driver is a learner driver, the PULSE system does not hold this information. The investigating garda must write to his or her chief superintendent saying why the garda need access to the information - for example, to determine the licence status of a driver involved in a fatal crash - and the chief superintendent must then write to the Road Safety Authority's, RSA, and the national driver licence service requesting the information from their files and, again, giving the reason.I put it to the Minister that this is a very cumbersome process that is clearly not functional. It is a very long drawn out process, which the RSA changed a number of years ago due to data protection procedures. It can take months to get the necessary information and, in some cases the information is, allegedly, never sent or received. Previously, gardaí were able to just make a phone call to the RSA to access the information.

The RSA recently provided information to "Prime Time" regarding the number of learner drivers involved in fatal crashes - for example, 12 in 2017 - and the number of unaccompanied learner drivers, which was nine in that year and, significantly, six, nine, ten and ten over the previous four years. When one looks at all the RSA statistics, it is very striking that they differ from the Department of Justice and Equality's figures and from the Garda Síochána figures. The RSA has said that in 2014 there were six fatal collisions involving an unaccompanied learner driver but the Department of Justice and Equality stated that there were eight fatal collisions involving an unaccompanied learner driver. This information was provided in a reply to a parliamentary question. The RSA has said that, in 2017, there were ten fatal collisions involving an unaccompanied learner driver, but on 8 November 2017 the Taoiseach, Deputy Leo Varadkar, stated in the Dáil that 11 unaccompanied learner drivers had died on our roads up to that point that year. That figure only covered the drivers and did not include other innocent victims who may have died in those fatal crashes in 2017.

On 28 March, we learned that between 2003 and 2016, some 196 deaths had been misclassified in Garda records and were actually caused by dangerous driving and road traffic collisions. The Irish Times reported that the "biggest underestimation by the Garda occurred in the dangerous driving causing death category. The Garda had initially recorded 504 such cases but the revised figure is 700; a difference of 196 cases." How does the Minister expect us to be able to share information with other countries when we cannot even record it and share it accurately among ourselves? In some instances, I have been waiting for more than a year for replies to parliamentary questions about road safety, especially from the Department of Justice and Equality. I have a long list of outstanding replies to parliamentary questions that I continually follow up on, only to be told that the Minister "will be in touch once the Garda report is to hand".

I have previously raised inconsistencies in the endorsement of licences with penalty points, the inadequate surrendering of disqualified licences, the inability of the gardaí to identify disqualified drivers and other litanies of inadequacies in our data collection, collation and dissemination. How the Minister thinks that we will be able to partake in an EU-wide data sharing project beggars belief given the inconsistencies and the lacunae we have found in recent years. While I will be supporting the Bill, as I agree with its general thrust, the issues relating to data protection and the collation and accuracy of our information are very disturbing. The two key Ministers involved are the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport and the Minister for Justice and Equality. I urge the Minister to prioritise fixing the absolute shambles of the NVDF, NDLS and PULSE without delay.

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