Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I will start by reading from the report of the Data Protection Commissioner. It states, "The law does not confer power on a specified body to insist upon the production of a PSC for the purposes of a transaction with it where a person does not already have one." This means that if a person is conducting a transaction with such a body, that person does not legally have to agree to have the data of the Department of Employment and Social Protection used to get a PSC for that transaction. The body cannot refuse to deal with the person because he or she does not have a card. The report indicates the indefinite retention of personal information by the Department is illegal and the Department is breaking the law by not informing people of how information kept by one public body may be shared to another.

The Minister is refusing to accept the ruling of the commissioner and is prepared to go to court with public money to contest that ruling. To most people, that seems like a fairly sound judgment on the misuse of data from individuals in the country. It is probably simple enough to adjust this if she examined other legal means rather than going through the courts. This will not make her very popular and, needless to say, there will be much public money spent on this exercise. The big questions are why is the Minister doing this and why is she persisting with this? There were other cases where she was warned that the card did not comply with the law. According to her, the commissioner is wrong and she must take the commission to court on that basis.

We can look at how the DPC has been beefed up quite seriously.

Its annual budget grew from €1.9 million in 2014 to €15.2 million in 2017. Over the same period, staff numbers grew from 31 to 180. That was a serious investment in the role of the Data Protection Commissioner and the Minister is about to tell the commissioner that she does not accept her recommendations, she is taking her to court and is unwilling to believe her findings. The Minister is not telling us why, only that she has legal advice that counters the commissioner's opinion. On the other hand, there must be other options open to her but she is refusing to take them. I contend that the reason for that is that this State, this Government, is bent over backwards to send a message to the data corporation giants across the world that they should open headquarters in Dublin because the regulations are lax and the taxes are low. Those companies can do what they need to do because low-touch data regulation will be the order of the day for Google, Facebook, LinkedIn or any of the other tech giants based in Ireland.

The Taoiseach addressed the digital summit in Dublin last week and many of the giant tech companies were present. In that address, he extolled the virtues of the digital revolution and a keynote speaker, one of the heads of Google, commended the Government on its tremendous leadership on digital policy. That is not apparent from what the Government is doing at the moment. The Government is signalling to the giant companies that it is okay and they are in safe hands if their data protection issues go wrong.

The Minister is undermining the office of the data protection commission and the general idea that data protection is important and, indeed, she may embolden the giant technological corporations to refuse to comply with data protection concerns in the future. It is clear that there are other avenues open to the Minister. She needs to explain clearly why she is contesting the finding of the commissioner. She must tell the House not just that she has legal advice that disagrees with the commissioner but what that legal advice is telling her. The Data Protection Commissioner is very clear that people cannot be forced to accept this card they have been told they must have it if they want to get a passport, driver's licence or other day-to-day necessities. The Department cannot indefinitely hold on to the personal information. The Department is breaking the law. The Minister says that is not the case but has not told us why. It is outrageous and there must be a political reason behind it. That reason is to signal to giant tech corporations that they are in the safe hands of a Dublin Government, led by Fine Gael, which is willing to spend public money needlessly and ignore the advice of the independent data commissioner. It is an outrageous decision but the Minister has time to pull back from it and she should.

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