Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)
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158. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if her attention has been drawn to the fact that her Department has instructed schools to make a copy of the personal data collected and processed for the purposes of populating the primary online database; to store and process it on site; the way such actions could possibly meet the security requirements as mandated by data protection legislation, and the way she has satisfied herself of this; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [6279/15]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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The Department takes the protection of pupil's data very seriously. The Primary Online Database (POD) may only be accessed through password-controlled accounts. POD application roles have been developed which limit school staff to viewing and maintaining their own pupil records. Only the school that the pupil attends and a small number of Department staff will have access to an account. Access within the Department to POD data is limited to the POD team which is currently less than 15 people. Pupil data is stored securely in the Department's database which is hosted on the Department's own servers in the Revenue Commissioners Data Centre. Access to the servers is protected by both Revenue and Government Networks firewalls. No agency or other Government Department, including the Revenue Commissioners, have access to the Primary Online Database.