Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I sought a copy of the Minister's speech but none was available so I am not 100% au fait with its contents, although I heard her refer to the Comptroller and Auditor General. If one is referring to the Comptroller and Auditor General, there is a duty to read all of his report and there are 15 pages in that chapter. When I hear somebody quoting the Comptroller and Auditor General, without looking at all of the relevant chapter, I must take them to task. His report points out that a key element in project planning is the development of a business case, setting out the objectives to be achieved and explaining the basis for the decision to proceed. There is no single business case documented for the public services card, PSC. The Comptroller and Auditor General is very fair and says that elements of a good practice business case were included in several documents; however, there were a number of omissions or partly-addressed matters.

The conclusions of the Comptroller and Auditor General are also interesting and are covered in the data protection commission report, to which I will come. There was a contract for three million public service cards to be delivered. It was originally intended, the Comptroller and Auditor General states in his conclusion, that three million public service cards would be produced by the end of 2013. That did not happen and I am not sure what happened about that breach of contract but, by the end of June 2016, that amount had reduced to two million and it was clear that target would not be reached. The Department, at that stage, expected the cost to be €60 million to develop and issue the cards. That did not include activating or renewing them and those were the costs applied when this chapter of the report was done in 2015 or 2016. The €60 million was to apply up to the end of 2017. The Minister might update us on the total cost to date and the future cost envisaged and whether a business case has been done in the meantime.

The report of the data protection commission quotes some of those facts from the Comptroller and Auditor General. I am not sure whether I am more shocked by the findings of the commissioner or the reaction of the Government because they both shock me. I have read the report and some of it with difficulty because it is a full report. The Data Protection Commissioner tells us that the introduction of the public services card has implications for all members of the public in data collected, required, stored and shared and so on. It is not only about privacy but also about control and foreseeability, that the person knows and has some control over the information being collected.

Prior to this, my colleagues and I repeatedly raised our concerns about this card. We were derided, laughed at and, at best, ignored. It has taken this very detailed document to outline the concerns. There were significant gaps in the legal basis. There was no legal basis under the Acts for the Minister's Department, or any other Department, to process personal information. It would be helpful if the Minister would listen when she is finished having a chat because I have only a few minutes and this is an extremely serious issue. The report also stated that the blanket retention of information is not acceptable and that there are huge problems over transparency and so on.

How will I use the minute and a half I have left to get through to the Minister? Rather than trying to rush through it, let me say that a sensible Government would realise that the concerns raised by those of us who were put on notice by organisations outside the Dáil have now been set out clearly in this report from the commissioner. A wise Government and Minister would look at that report and ask what they can do and take it on board to improve the system.

I see not only denial but an arrogant justification. The response of the Department was nothing short of contemptuous when it gave back some 700 unpaginated pages in response to a draft report. The Minister had that draft report in August 2018. She was on notice for years before the data commission, or whatever it was called at the time, had serious concerns. Each year, in its annual report, it put the Minister on notice that it was concerned about the functional creep, the failure to outline a policy and the failure of legislation. The Minister has made much play of the legislation. I do not have the time to tell the Minister how many amendments have been made to the legislation in a piecemeal, fragmented fashion. The office of the commissioner was obliged to put a consolidated version together and publish it on its website to help the public to, in some way, understand what was going on. The Department subsequently decided to publish an informal consolidated document.

At this stage, all I can do is use my voice in the Dáil to say it is contemptuous of democracy for a Government to proceed in this fashion. It has the most serious implications for us when we go out and ask people to believe us on the street.

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