Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Eamon Ryan's amendment is very clear. It refers to "such disclosure, only where expressed consent has been sought and received". We would probably need a database the size of County Cavan to hold all of the notional consents. I return to the original point. Who is going to consent in this Shangri-La to having his or her information shared between the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection and the Revenue Commissioners? Who is going to consent to having his or her information shared between the register of electors and the Courts Service for use in selection for jury duty? That would be the net result of what is being proposed. It has fazed many. The Bill has been designed to give legal effect to things we are already doing. Deputy Eamon Ryan's amendment would undermine everything we do already, including in the Department he formerly headed. I refer, in particular, to families dependent on social welfare payments. I have mentioned the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance where consent would have to be given. In the case of children's allowance and information shared with public health nurses, new mothers are busy enough following the delivery of their child, with the changes that brings. Can we imagine the bundle of papers that would arrive through the letterbox or be sent from the maternity hospital courtesy of the amendments? Consent would have to be given to everything that followed.

I understand from where Deputy Jonathan O'Brien is coming. However, we need to consider a situation between the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine, perhaps concerning an overpayment, and the Revenue Commissioners and the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection, for instance, where an investigation is needed. Imagine if someone had to be asked for his or her consent to be investigated? In this Utopian world we are trying to inhabit where the State is somehow out to get people we are going to be all cuddly. Deputy Wallace has stated 99% of people will consent. If 99% of people will consent to have their information shared between the Revenue Commissioners and the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection, I must definitely be inhabiting a different world from the one in which some Members of this House are living.

See this speech in context