Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senator Higgins. Section 15 of the Bill amends section 27 of the Parental Leave Act, which provides for the retention of records to be held by an employer in respect of forms of leave and entitlements under the Bill. Section 15 provides that those records related to leave for medical care purposes and the right to request a flexible working arrangement be held for three years only and obviously the requirements of the general data protection regulation, GDPR, are that third party data should only be held for as long as necessary. My understanding is that if we accept Senator Higgins's amendment and a person's employment lasts for longer than three years, we will be holding the documentation for longer than three years. We have some concern about the outcome of her amendment. In certain circumstances, may be to hold data for longer than three years and that may be necessary in some places but it may not so there is an outcome that holds it for longer so we are not proposing to accept this immediately because of that.