Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

In a similar vein to Deputy Connolly, first of all I acknowledge the need for this. I appreciate that we had a briefing on this last week. I am old school in that I hate rushing legislation. We need a little more time on these matters, but we are where we are.

I acknowledge the work of Dr. Mark Coen, Dr. Maeve O'Rourke, Dr. Clare McGettrick, Professor James Smith and Professor Katherine O'Donnell and the press release that they issued on 15 October in relation to the need for this legislation.

I speak for people who are the subject of a record but are very protective about that record - their own personal information. Now that record will be onboarded to a national archive or, as I understand it, can be accessed by the National Archives. If a person recognises the need for a record to be preserved but they do not necessarily want it accessed by people inappropriately, are there protections for them to ensure their personal information is protected, remains private and cannot be accessed by another entity beyond the entity where it is stored at present? I hope that makes sense. I am anxious to ensure that when people want to preserve the privacy of their own records, there is no risk that the onboarding of that personal information will risk causing that information to become accessible to other parties inappropriately.

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