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

As I said in the Dáil and the last time I was here, I am not making any changes to the Social Welfare Consolidation Act, and nor can I. In this Bill I am trying to reflect what is in that Act and, in doing so, it is not our intention to create any special categories of data. The Senator will be aware of some of the discussion we had in the Dáil around this issue. We came up with amendment No. 5 to reflect both the intention of the existing legislation not to create any categories of special data and the Attorney General's advice.

The GDPR is one of the cornerstones of the legislation. We have had regard to existing legislation and have had long discussions on the premise of this Bill. We have no intention of deviating from the existing Social Welfare Consolidation Act. I understand the concerns of Senators and I am sure they will come up again in relation to some of the other amendments.