Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)

I thank all Senators for their contributions and support for the motion. There is no doubt that GDPR is hugely important and has significantly benefited many people in terms of protecting their rights, enhancing their privacy and ensuring that their personal details are held properly and safely. That is really important.

As Senator Wilson said, sometimes friction arises in the area of public representation, and we are all public representatives. The initial legislation on GDPR recognised and provided for the role of public representatives. As a Deputy, I do not experience or come up against any GDPR barriers in terms of making legitimate representations for constituents. Sometimes questions are raised. My experience has been that is sometimes due to a lack of experience on the part of the people with whom we are interfacing. It is right and proper that public representatives are allowed to carry out their role on behalf of the constituents we seek to represent and who ask us to represent them.

As Senators know, there have been challenges around the country with the roll out of community-based and local authority backed CCTV schemes. This issue arose in Limerick, where for a significant period of time CCTV was stepped down. I understand we have got around that. It is a challenge. I will revert to Senator Wilson with a proper update on that.