Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I join in the calls for a debate on cybersecurity. I ask specifically that whichever Minister or Minister of State comes in is able to speak about the single customer view data set, to which we have started to add biometric data in the last few years. It includes the data of over 3 million of our citizens and photographs are now being added to it. This is very concerning and is something I have highlighted previously.I understand the Data Protection Commissioner is due to publish a report on biometric data. The State has still not addressed the concerns the commissioner has raised about the customer view data set. That is a mistake and I ask that it be addressed when we have that debate.

The House will get to debate housing. We might join the dots on the fact that hundreds of millions of euro have been given to investors to purchase at a time when local authorities have been forbidden from purchasing. Instead, local authorities are being told they must lease and are sometimes leasing at the same cost because of the fiscal rules. Those rules have been suspended for a year by Europe and will be suspended for another two years, so this is the moment. To join a third dot, Ireland apparently has capital earmarked for expenditure which it cannot spend this year. Let that capital go to local authorities to purchase and own public housing stock.

I join Senators in thanking the Leader for arranging a debate on Palestine. It will be very important. Let us not simply talk about the human tragedy, as others have. I saw the little girl saying she would do anything she could but what can she do as she is only ten years old. We must remember we are a country that is powerful and has an impact, and that there are things we can do. Everything we can do should be done. The ten-year-old spoke of wanting to be a doctor. Last night, Dr. Ayman Abu Al-Ouf, the head of internal medicine and coronavirus response at the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, was killed. That is somebody who was dedicated to their work.

Let us have the Minister in but we must hear the detail, specifically the Attorney General's advice. The Government does not have to publish it but it should be explained. Does the advice include, for example, the European Court of Justice ruling on Rosneft from last year, which said sanctions could be imposed on Russia for reasons of public policy? Does that decision form part of the advice? Is there a danger that Ireland is itself committing violations - as some legal experts would argue - by giving aid to settlement areas through the purchase of goods? That is a legal opinion I would like to have.

We should also bear in mind that Attorneys General are sometimes wrong. In 2017, in the debate on the Adoption (Information and Tracing) Bill 2016, Senator Ruane and I were told by the then Attorney General that our proposals were illegal. Those proposals are in the new Adoption (Information and Tracing) Bill 2021. Let the Government be ready to argue the case and show Ireland can give leadership on this issue.