Paschal Donohoe (Fine Gael)

I did not. How did we get ourselves to the point where not only action on public services is confined to Government, which I can understand, but the right to comment on that is also confined to the Government?

I support Senator Buttimer's point on the loss of important and sensitive data belonging to patients. The Government is proposing to introduce a new directive that will allow more information about citizens to be stored. A directive is coming from the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, which has not been debated, that will extend the amount of time in which that Department can hold information on e-mails sent and mobile phone calls made.

In recent weeks and this morning we have seen the inability of the HSE to manage that information. Last week we saw the inability of one of our leading banks to manage it. Why can we not have a debate in this House on the reason such a directive is needed, given that no other European country is doing this, and how it will be implemented without the privacy of our citizens being jeopardised?