Phil Prendergast (Labour)

I welcome the Minister to the House. The necessity of the European Union directive on the retention of passenger data is unquestionable. Like enterprise and governance, crime and terrorism have become globalised. We are all aware of that. A co-ordinated international response, therefore, is required. The retention of passenger name data has been used to thwart terrorism, drug smuggling and human trafficking and anyone concerned about civil liberties is rightly wary of laws that involve retaining personal information. However, the need to protect ourselves from international crime and terrorism is imperative.

These conflicting demands mean that the measures we adopt need to be proportionate and the directive provides for data to be stored for 30 days and then anonymised and retained in an inactive database for a further five years. An independent authority will then monitor compliance. This week we saw a related directive on data retention in the ICT sector was found to be inadequate, largely because it entailed disproportionate measures relative to the differing security and crime protection needs of member states.

We should take note of that and I am not entirely sure we need to keep the data for five years. Nonetheless, the protection of passenger identities and retention of the data by the authorities of member states and the independent watchdog provides important checks. Civil liberties are further protected by the provision to allow passengers the right to accurate information about the collection of their data and the right to access, clarify, rectify or delete it, where appropriate. They will also be able to seek legal remedy if their rights have been infringed. The European Union has also stipulated that data concerning ethnic origin, political opinions or religious beliefs may never be transferred. I note in the debate in the Dáil yesterday that the opposition to this directive came from, dare I say it, the usual suspects.

The apologists for terrorism in Sinn Féin and the extremists who claim to be on the left of Irish politics voted against the directive yesterday. These are the people who blithely advocated policies during the general election campaign that would almost certainly lead to the social and economic destruction of our country. The opponents of this directive are the same people who advocate taking wild risks with our future, that of our loved ones, our elderly, our children and the vulnerable members of our society. They believe we should treat our international neighbours with contempt and call it a foreign policy.

When the inevitable consequence of that occurs, they want the people of Ireland to engage in ongoing mass protest. It is no wonder they oppose these measures because experiences such as the street protests in London not long ago, show the screen behind which organised extremists engage in violent and destructive acts. These are the anarchists who operate across international borders that Sinn Féin and the so-called socialists in our Dáil want to facilitate.

As usual, Ireland's political extremists have lost sight of what public representation and, indeed, socialism is about. Their opposition to this directive is proof again that they have taken their eye off the people because they are too busy reading The Communist Manifesto. If they were in touch with the people they would have noticed something, namely, that millions of people do not mind having their personal data stored. In fact, they voluntarily submit it for storage to private companies all the time. Financial institutions, web-based services and supermarkets are provided with personal data every day of the week. It is right that we are careful about how we approach this directive but that does not mean we should reject it. Rather, we should ensure it is monitored effectively. PNR data is already provided by airlines on flights from the EU to the US, Canada and Australia. I have yet to hear of an instance of misuse of the data.

The opposition we heard yesterday shows that there are people in the Dáil who think it is better to protect a dated ideological perspective than to protect the people the ideology is supposed to support. This directive protects the citizens of Ireland and Europe and does not threaten them, as some would have us believe.