Déirdre de Búrca (Green Party)

I draw the attention of the House to the fact that today, 22 April, is Earth Day, a day that is marked internationally. The purpose of the day is to promote greater awareness of some of the threats that face our earth, the greatest of which is climate change. I congratulate the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy John Gormley, on the series of advertisements his Department has launched recently to promote public awareness of the importance of this issue. The advertisements put forward the issue as a challenge our generation must face up to, similar to challenges faced by previous generations. I raise the issue because, when legislation and measures to deal with the issue arise in the Houses of the Oireachtas, I hope there will be cross-party support for them.

I also call for an urgent parliamentary debate on the issue of data retention. It is ironic and somewhat disturbing that on a day when the leading story in the media concerns the fact that customers of a particular bank discovered their confidential data had been stolen and only belatedly reported to the Data Protection Commissioner, we hear the State is considering broadening Garda powers of request for Internet data under a new draft statutory instrument implementing European directives in the area of data retention. Unfortunately, as Senator Alex White said, it appears the definition of criminal offence will be broadened to allow gardaí to request e-mail and Internet data retained by service providers relating to any offence which could receive a maximum custodial sentence of six months. This would include offences such as public order offences, for example, a minor assault or refusing to move on when being asked to do so by a garda.

As in many other policy areas, we must get the balance right. In the area of data retention we must find the right balance between protecting our common security and recognising that the issue of data retention is bound up with human and consumer rights. Protecting individual privacy must be a priority. I ask that the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform come to House to explain how the statutory instrument is being implemented and the reason the definition of serious offence has been changed. I suggest we also should have a broader debate on the issue in both Houses. If we do not have that, we will see measures such as this being implemented without much debate, which is not in our interests.