Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank all Senators for their contributions. I will start with the last point and reassure Senators that this is not about mass surveillance or retaining data for indiscriminate purposes. From our point of view, what this Bill does is reduce the amount of data that can be retained in comparison with what is currently the case. It increases the number of safeguards of judicial oversight and other types of discretions in terms of An Garda Síochána. This is the very least we should have, to be honest, and this is the base from which we should be working.

I firmly believe, and it seems to be the view of the House, that a person's right to privacy should never overrule a person's right to safety, this country's national security or the right to ensure a person is brought to justice for committing a serious crime or, indeed, as Senator Ward and others said, to ensure that a person can be exonerated and that this type of information can be used to exclude somebody from a particular case. We all need to work hard, not just here in this Parliament but across the EU, to try to get this right.

I cannot stress enough how much I did not want to bring this legislation forward in this timeline. Many Senators mentioned the timeline and how this came about. We might look at the sequence of events. A Bill was drafted back in 2017 and we had the Oireachtas report, which was presented in 2018. We then had that significant case in 2019. A decision was taken at that point by the then Minister not to progress with the legislation because of the evolving nature of the various different rulings. I know that was not the case in some other countries such as France, Belgium and a few others where they changed their laws and must now change them again because they are not compliant with the most recent court ruling. We had changes to rulings as recently as October 2020 and then finally the Court of Justice of the European Union ruling on 5 April. It was through a case management hearing that we discovered that it was not likely to change in the upcoming Supreme Court ruling. I brought a memo to Cabinet the following week. I moved as quickly as I could, working closely with the Attorney General and engaging with the Data Protection Commission, DPC - just to assure colleagues - and the Joint Committee on Justice, albeit I appreciate not in a way that I nor any of my colleagues would like. Obviously, we are continuing to engage with the DPC.

As well as that, we have been engaging with the various different communications platforms, which wrote to me a number of weeks ago and were very concerned that if this legislation was not clarified and the Supreme Court ruling finalised, and if certain parts of the current Act lapsed, they would have no choice but to potentially get rid of all the data they had. Obviously, that was quite concerning and something we certainly did not want to happen.

Senator Mullen has left the Chamber but I reassure colleagues that there has been a huge amount of discussion at a European level, obviously, from the various court cases where we have strenuously tried to protect and uphold what we have in terms of our legal response but also at an EU level. At my most recent Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting last month in Luxembourg, we had a different item on the agenda. I raised directly with Commissioner Reynders the need to not tie the hands of any of our police services behind their backs for the sake of privacy where there seems to be that imbalance and was supported by a number of colleagues. I was reminded that it is not just about setting law at an EU level but that this is how the European courts are interpreting the human rights charters, not necessarily GDPR legislation. There is much more work we need to do. It is something on which I am absolutely committed to engaging further with my colleagues.

As I said, I think we are all of the same view that An Garda Síochána should be able to do its job. The Court of Justice of the European Union was very clear in what it said, which was that platforms cannot save data to investigate or prosecute serious offences or save certain types of data indiscriminately. We have gone as far as we possibly could with this Bill following legal advice from the Attorney General and his team. As I said, without it, I would have huge concerns about what data companies may or may not do because they feel they do not or would not have the clarity. This Bill provides a certainty and clarity for platforms at the same time.

Again, I commit to working with colleagues as we bring forward a general scheme later this year. We must obviously allow a much greater timescale in terms of engagement, not just with colleagues here and in the Dáil but with all those potentially impacted by this, including the various communications platforms, the DPC, An Garda Síochána and many others.When I had this debate with colleagues in the Dáil, my biggest concern was the sunset clause. One might say there is a slight chance it will happen, but a sunset clause means everything in this would fall should a new Bill not be enacted within that timeframe. We all know things happen in politics, intended or not, and I have a concern that should a new Bill not be enacted and the sunset clause lapse, we would find ourselves in the position we are potentially in if we do not do this now, in that these measures would lapse and there would be uncertainty for service providers and An Garda Síochána.

I absolutely commit to the general scheme by the end of this year, progressing new legislation while working with our European colleagues to try to identify how we can deal with some of the implications of this, in particular when it comes to being able to investigate and prosecute serious crime.

I thank colleagues. We all want to get the balance right between protecting people's personal rights and privacy while protecting people's rights to security and safety. I look forward to working with colleagues to ensure we get that balance.