Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

On Committee Stage, we moved an amendment to section 41 after concerns were raised with us regarding the safeguarding of personal data of victims and survivors in the context of any information request made by the agency to a service provider under that section. In fairness to the Minister, she said she would check out the point. She contacted us to say she had received advice from the Attorney General which stated the proposed amendment was unecessary as it was not intended the agency would process such data and section 41 did not provide a basis for it to do so. She stated she was satisfied, in the context of section 41 or any other provision, that had it been intended for the Bill to provide such a basis, it would have to have been explicitly provided for in the Bill. Stating in clear and accessible language that victims' personal data will be protected may encourage victims to seek out support services. Some of the NGOs involved, however, made the point that if the amendment is fully in line with the intention to protect such data, how can it affect the Department to include it in the Bill? Why not include it if it is not going to make any difference anyway? The benefit of the protection felt by victims or the feeling they would have that their data are being protected would outweigh any potential administrative inconvenience involved in making the changes. That is the feeling that came back from them and I wanted to put it to the Minister before we proceeded further.

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