Barry Heneghan (Dublin Bay North, Independent)
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281. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality if he will give an immediate assurance that Ireland will ratify the Budapest convention without any further delay; and to confirm that this will be completed before the end of 2025 in order to prevent Ireland remaining an international outlier; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [54154/25]

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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I can assure the Deputy that Ireland remains fully committed to ratification of the Council of Europe ‘Budapest’ Convention on Cybercrime.

The Convention is divided into three main sections: criminalisation of listed offences; measures for the gathering of evidence in relation to the listed offences and from computer systems generally; and international cooperation.

A significant number of requirements of the Convention have already been met by the Criminal Justice (Offences Relating to Information Systems) Act 2017. The remaining articles of the Convention will be addressed by two legislative projects that are currently underway.

The Criminal Justice (Protection, Preservation of and Access to Data on Information Systems) Bill aims to give effect to most of the outstanding provisions of the Budapest Convention. The relevant provisions of that the Bill will provide for the expansion of Ireland’s regime of "preservation orders" and "production orders", whereby Irish law enforcement authorities will be able to request access, through a court, to data being held on IT systems controlled by Irish-based internet service providers. The General Scheme of the Bill was approved by the Government on 6 February 2024, and has completed pre-legislative scrutiny. It is intended that the Bill, which is very complex, will be published next summer.

Four further articles of the Convention relate to interception powers. These are Articles 20, 21, 33 and 34, which concern real-time collection of traffic data, interception of content data and mutual legal assistance. The Programme for Government includes a commitment to enact new interception laws and work on a review of the current legislation in this area, the Interception of Postal Packets and Telecommunications Messages (Regulation) Act 1993, is being progressed as a priority. The four Articles are being assessed as part of this review.