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

I indicated during Committee Stage proceedings that I might bring an amendment on Report Stage with regard to data sharing by information sources. Amendment No. 51 creates a new section that will allow the chief deciding officer, where necessary and proportionate in respect of his or her functions under the Act, to access and process personal data and special categories of personal data held by information sources.

Institutional records are of key importance to this scheme. Their importance cannot be overestimated. Records will be the means of establishing eligibility and it is this approach that will eliminate the requirement for any applicant to bring forward evidence of abuse or harm. The vast majority of institutional records of the potential applicants to the scheme are held in the commission of investigation's archive and database. Section 54 gives the chief deciding officer a lawful basis to access the copy of this database currently held by my Department. At present, very valuable work is being undertaken in my Department, in collaboration with information sources, with regard to remaining institutional records that are not held in the commission of investigation's archive and database. These primarily relate to some of the county homes that were not examined by the commission of investigation. It is a fairly small percentage of the overall number of records but it is nonetheless important. If these records could be shared with the office of the chief deciding officer under a data-sharing agreement, that could reduce applicant wait times as the office of the chief deciding officer could undertake its own searches without needing to approach information sources on a case-by-case basis, as is currently provided for under section 22. It is important that section 22 remains in the Bill to allow for data-sharing on a case-by-case basis but this amendment will provide information sources with a lawful basis to enter into such a data-sharing agreement with the office of the chief deciding officer to allow for data sharing on a broader basis.

Amendment No. 24 is a technical amendment to section 22 to ensure consistency of language across the two sections. It strengthens this section by providing that the chief deciding officer may, to the extent necessary for and proportionate to the performance of his or her functions under the Act, request information from an information source for the purpose of establishing an applicant's eligibility under the scheme.