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

We are not cutting anyone out of it. There is nothing in the Bill that precludes the public body from engaging with the citizen. Public bodies are obliged to use the base registry as a source and as a result of that move on to the agreement. All of the safeguards I have referred to a while ago regarding leave agencies, base registries, all of the setting out of agreements, submissions, consultations are there for that purpose. There is not in any way an intention to abuse the data set.

The Senator referred to effectiveness and efficiencies. The flip side of that can be taken also in the delivery of the public service. It is more efficient to ask the question once. That principle is accepted. It is a once only principle where if a person is availing of a service, it could be inferred that there is consent already contained in that by virtue of the fact that they have presented themselves to look for that particular support or service from the State. If it is an efficient use of the State's resources to have all of this data accessible once in a legally binding agreement which is supervised by the Data Commissioner, subject to audit, scrutinised by a data governance board, laid before the Oireachtas, open to public consultation and amenable to what we are already bound to by the general data protection regulations, GDPR, then it certainly is proportionate and is an efficient and effective use of the data set.

It must be borne in mind that this is already happening. We are trying to put a legal basis on it at the moment and what we are doing here is proportionate, reasonable and having clear regard to making sure that there are safeguards in place that are tested and can be tested.