Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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73. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the date on which the Data Sharing and Governance Bill will be introduced; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42513/17]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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The draft general scheme of the Data Sharing and Governance Bill was approved by Government and published in August 2015. The purpose of the Bill is to promote and encourage data sharing between public bodies by providing a statutory framework for data sharing for legitimate and clearly specified purposes that are compliant with data protection law; and to improve the protection of individual privacy rights by setting new governance standards for data sharing by public bodies. 

Pre-legislative scrutiny hearings on the Bill were held in April and May 2017 by the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach with officials from my Department and the Department of Justice, the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner and representatives of civil society groups with an interest in the area of digital rights and data protection. The Committee published its report in July 2017.

Work is well underway on the drafting of the Bill, which will be informed by the findings and recommendations contained in the Committee's report. The Bill must also take into account the provisions of the EU General Data Protection Regulation, which was published in April 2016 and comes into effect on 25 May 2018, as well as the October 2015 ruling of the European Court of Justice in the case of Smaranda Bara and Others, which sets out certain criteria for the lawful sharing of data by public bodies.

I intend to submit the text of the Bill to Government for approval to publish and commence passage through the Oireachtas by the end of this year or shortly thereafter.