Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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117. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills further to her statements that during the survey of social contexts of schools the data required were not in relation to the circumstances of individual pupils, if her attention has been drawn to the fact that some schools including a school (details supplied) in County Leitrim have collected individualised information which they have stipulated will be shared with other State bodies in their correspondence with parents; the number of schools who have breached data protection regulations. [46511/14]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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I wish to advise the Deputy that the data which schools were requested to return as part of the social context survey was non-personal, anonymised data.

Schools were not asked to return data in relation to the social circumstances of individual pupils. The Office of the Data Protection Commissioner had advised that the data protection legislation did not apply to the collection of non personal data.

Schools were asked to return the surveys to the Educational Research Centre (ERC) and surveys were therefore not returned directly to my Department.

The Educational Research Centre has advised that no school sent the Educational Research Centre personalised data.