Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On the first question the Deputy asked me earlier on about our two requests for a meeting with the Data Protection Commissioner, I cannot answer why the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner refused the meeting. No other meeting before those requests has every been refused. We had extensive engagement on this investigation and on a number of others over recent years since the inception of the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner.

I do not accept there is an open conflict. I accept the legislation that was passed by this House gave us the authority and ability to do exactly what we are doing, as it gave anybody else who had adverse findings made against him or her by a quasi-judicial authority such as the Data Protection Commission the authority to challenge those findings in the legal courts, particularly if he or she does not agree with them. I have strong and legally robust advice to tell me we have a legislative basis to do exactly what we have done.

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