Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is useful that declarations of interest have been raised. Of course, such declarations are implied in the State guidelines but perhaps they might be more robustly reflected. As Senator Conway Walsh stated, county managers can also have concerns and conflicts of interest, particularly where a large number of private bodies will, in effect, be included as public bodies under the Bill and where decisions made may be of great significance to them. As has been indicated, it may be that local authority members may be data controllers so there may need to be a clear protocol to ensure, for example, that if a data-sharing agreement is being decided between two public bodies and if their CEOs or leaders are on the board, then maybe they should not be making the decision relating to that agreement. This is an area we can examine further.