Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister's amendment No. 7 obviously removes what we put into the Bill. I was going to ask the Minister that if he was going to object to our provision whether he had contacted the office of the European Data Protection Supervisor in the meantime about us placing an obligation in law for its involvement. He has done so, and it nails the argument. There is nothing more we can do on that. The point about external involvement is still important, but I take the point that the office of the European Data Protection Supervisor feels this is not a role for it. On that basis we cannot really press ahead with it.

With regard to amendment No. 8, this is the same as what we presented on Committee Stage, to insert a requirement that vacancies for the role of the Data Protection Commissioner would be advertised publicly, along with details of the criteria for the filling of the vacancy. I know the Minister has said this is not necessary and that an open competition presumes a public advertisement, but does it entirely? We can have an open competition that is not actually open because nobody knows about it. We just want to know whether it is explicitly guaranteed that the vacancies will be advertised, along with the specific list of criteria for people who might want to take up the positions.

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