Dáil debates

Tuesday, 12 June 2018

2:10 pm

Photo of Micheál MartinMicheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Were the two Ministers aware of this and did they authorise it? Will the Taoiseach give me a straight answer when I ask specific questions? I did not ask about the pay claim but I am aware of it. If the Taoiseach consulted the report by the director of the HSE to the health committee in December last year, he could have seen fully his position on the public-private split.

I asked the following question: a strategy was approved but were the Ministers aware of his and did they authorise this? The Taoiseach is fundamentally wrong. Is he aware of the Data Protection Acts? Does he think the Government and Ministers can wilfully violate and ignore those Acts? I asked if any legal contract had been entered into with the private investigators because such a contract would at least indicate some attempt to ensure compliance with the Acts. Is the Taoiseach aware of Mr. Justice Herbert's comments in the High Court about covert surveillance of employees in Sweeney v. Ballinteer Community School, where he said it amounted to malicious harassment of the individual concerned? The Data Protection Commissioner has articulated quite significantly on this matter over the past two to three years. The Taoiseach is cavalier and he articulated to The Irish Timeson Monday the idea that because RTÉ does it, the Government can do it. Is the Government's new ethical code that whatever the media can do, it can do so as well? Social welfare inspectors are governed by a legal code and successive statutory provisions over the years governing those activities, which balance the rights of citizens versus the rights of the State. I want honesty from the Taoiseach and he should be straight up.

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