Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

That would be very welcome because legislation should be readable and we should be able to understand exactly what the rights of every citizen are in relation to data. The Garda should be crystal clear on its rights when accessing and using data for criminal investigation purposes. That is really important.

Equally important is the point already made - a question I asked the representative of the data platform providers in the course of the truncated pre-legislative scrutiny last Thursday. I asked how long he thought it would take for the platforms to implement this particular set of proposals. He said it would take up to 24 months. He could not give me a cost but said it would be a very considerable cost, which obviously would have to be passed on to users. That is not escapable inasmuch as we are required to implement the European Court of Justice findings but we need to be practical about its implementation.

The Minister said the Bill provides for amendments to the current rules on general and indiscriminate retention of traffic and location data, the so-called "Schedule 2" data. That is really important because it provides data on where each of us is. As we now learn from court cases we follow, phones are like having tracking devices on our persons. The companies that provide us with the service know where each of us is at any given moment in time. Most of us are not comfortable with that. For most of us it would be very boring to find out where we are at any given time. We would like our lives to be more exciting but still we do not want everybody to know always where we are at any given time. That is why privacy on these matters is so important. However, there are occasions when it will be important to know where suspects are or have been. We really did not have a chance to tease out with representatives of An Garda Síochána whether this is the best fist we could have made of the European Court judgment. I am intrigued by the Minister's comment in her presentation to us that she wants to raise this matter with colleagues in the justice committee I presume at the European Council.

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