Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I raise the concerning story that broke overnight about what appears to be the illegal retention of data by the Department of Social Protection. The report published by the Journal.ie today of an investigation carried out by Noteworthy.ie came on foot of a complaint made by Mr. Martin McMahon. It appears data on journeys undertaken by holders of free travel passes were held by the Department of Social Protection until 2020, when an order was given for the complete deletion of the database. This raises serious questions for the Department of Social Protection, because it appears that the journey data on the integrated ticketing system could be linked back to the personal details of free travel pass holders. On reviewing the evidence in the public domain so far, a data protection expert said he believed the type of monitoring and surveillance that was being carried out represented "a profound interference in the privacy and data protection rights and freedoms" of those free travel pass holders.

It also seems the whole process was carried out because there was a suspicion that free travel passes were being abused. However, the data showed 0.0004% of free travel journeys were fraudulent. When we look at the timing of this mass surveillance of free travel pass holders, what is most striking is that it came not long after the now Tánaiste, Deputy Varadkar, launched his "Welfare Cheats Cheat Us All” campaign. That campaign was roundly and rightly criticised at the time and it was called a hate campaign by one former social welfare worker. In that case as well, the level of fraud found was as similarly minuscule as the level found in this instance concerning the free travel passes. Now that we know the Data Protection Commissioner is carrying out an investigation of the database that was held by the Department of Social Protection, we should hear from the Minister regarding who ordered this mass surveillance, on what legal basis it was carried out, who ordered the deletion of the database and how much public money was spent on setting up such a database.