Written answers

Wednesday, 20 February 2019

Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection

Data Protection

Photo of Catherine MurphyCatherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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234. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if the former data protection officer (details supplied) of her Department has been reassigned from their role or transferred to another Department or location; the reason this person ceased to be the DPO of her Department; the date on which this occurred; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [8585/19]

Photo of Catherine MurphyCatherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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237. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection if breaches of Article 38.3 GDPR (details supplied) have occurred and been brought to her attention since its introduction; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [8667/19]

Photo of Regina DohertyRegina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 234 and 237 together.

Articles 37, 38 and 39 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) deal with the appointment and role of a Data Protection Officer (DPO). All public authorities and bodies including Government Departments are required to designate a DPO. My Department has assigned the DPO role to a senior manager at Principal level and also assigned considerable staff resources to support the DPO in fulfilling the requirements of the role set out in the GDPR.

As the Deputy is aware, Article 38.3 provides for the DPO to be independent in the conduct of his / her tasks and not receive any instructions regarding the exercise of those tasks. The Department is fully satisfied that the DPO is given the required independence and autonomy. The Department does not interfere in any way with the DPO's independent functions, nor does it instruct the DPO in the exercise of DPO duties.

Over the past number of weeks a significant number of reassignments have taken place at Principal level in the Department. Opportunities for these moves arose as vacancies were created by retirements and promotions of serving Principals. The Department is conscious of the development needs of its staff and considers it important to provide staff with the chance to expand their personal experience and develop their careers. Movements of staff between functions also facilitates cross-fertilisation of knowledge and builds organisation resilience. The retirement and promotion of a number of staff at Principal level provided the Department with the opportunity to reassign almost 30% of Principals with a view to achieving these objectives. In this context the Principal performing the role of DPO was one of the Principals assigned to another role. A serving Principal with a significant knowledge of data protection issues has now been assigned to the DPO role.

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