Charles Flanagan (Laois, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will be introducing regulations in the normal course. There is provision under Article 37, which deals with the designation of the data protection officer, in terms of there being scope for a group of entities appointing a single data protection officer but obviously there would have to be guidelines and regulations to ensure that there was access across the various undertakings or entities.

For example, each and every local authority now has a data protection officer. Across the SME sector, particularly in recent times, companies are moving towards the designation and appointment of such officers but there is much work to be done in that area.

In response to the Senator's specific question about groups, the answer is "Yes" it is possible, but there will be a number of regulations around that to ensure there is a large degree of movement and flexibility between the various establishments involved. We will come back to that at a later stage.