Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Well, it was the county and I am sure the Minister of State is not so parochial that he would not involve the city in his deliberations. It is important to have appropriate safeguards. Equally, as the Minister of State mentioned, there are audit trails in place to ensure that people are safe and that if people move into an area, their neighbours, people who work in the Civil Service or the Revenue Commissioners or whoever else are not looking at their information purely for frivolous matters or because they wish to.

It is important that data sharing exists and that the laws are there to ensure that we comply with both national and EU law. I will not go over the Minister of State's comprehensive speech on every section of the Bill but we must ensure that people are only getting involved with the lawful functions or sections and they are doing so to verify identity and identify erroneous information. There is a portal so people can see what is available and correct their own information. The Minister has significant powers under the Bill and we do not oppose that, but it is important that the sections of the Bill provide for appropriate data sharing and governance. We want a legal framework for the holding and sharing of data by public bodies and we want data more widely and fairly shared, but we must ensure there is enough cybersecurity. I have spoken on this previously on behalf of my colleague, Senator Clifford-Lee, in terms of cybersecurity in the Garda Síochána. We must ensure there are no issues with cybersecurity. That security must be ramped up to ensure the citizens' data are intact in the various Departments and are protected in a shared portal.

I commend the Bill. We had at least two sessions on it in the finance committee, which involved Senator Paddy Burke and Senator Conway-Walsh. I am the only one here who is not from Mayo and I apologise for that. Senator O'Mahony, the Acting Chairman, is also from Mayo. It is like Mayo on tour.