Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There has been a great deal of engagement. I acknowledge that the Senator has engaged and I thank her for doing so. She referred to Google Spain, which is a private body. This Bill refers to two public bodies. It is not necessarily comparable.

The Bill refers to a number of prescribed public bodies. The prescription of the public bodies will make it possible for the Minister to add other public bodies, or other bodies which might yet necessarily be constituted, in the future. We do not know what size such future bodies might be and we do not know how burdensome that would be.

Outside of all of that, I repeat the point I made earlier, which was that any data sharing which will be carried out in the future on this basis will need to have regard to all the backstops, namely, the Minister, the governance board and the data commissioner. While there are two parties to the agreement, we cannot really determine the size and the financial ability of one of those parties at the moment.

The three amendments before the House propose the removal of the avoidance of a financial and administrative burden as one of the purposes for which data sharing can take place and a registry be designated under this Bill. The primary legal basis for data sharing under the Bill is Article 6(1)(e) of the GDPR, which refers to, "processing necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller". This Bill, in seeking to further limit the circumstances under which data sharing may occur, lists the avoidance of a financial and administrative burden as one of a list of additional purposes, at least one of which must be engaged in, in order for data sharing to be permitted. I emphasise that it is just one of the purposes listed. The aim of this provision is to support the principle that people should have to give their information to a public body once only. During the pre-legislative scrutiny phase and in earlier discussions in this House, Members said they were very keen to avoid all of us being confronted on a continuous basis with having to provide the same information to public bodies that are trying to deliver services to us.

If this amendment is agreed, and if this is the only additional purpose a public body is relying on to share data, people will be left having to resubmit documents to public bodies on a continuous basis, rather than enjoying the benefits of the once-only principle. This would undermine one of the main tenets of the Bill and would militate against the purpose of the Bill and the obligation on public bodies to provide an efficient and effective service. It would also militate against the efficient and effective use of taxpayers' money by public bodies, which I am sure no one would intend. We are committed to the implementation of the once-only principle under the Tallinn Declaration on eGovernment, to which Ireland is a signatory. The Senator’s amendment would effectively hold Ireland behind its European counterparts and militate against the achievement of the Tallinn objectives, one of which is the once-only principle. On that basis, I cannot support these amendments.