Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 5 July 2023
140. Deputy Mattie McGrath asked the Minister for Justice in light of her statement that there exists a serious and genuine, present or foreseeable threat to the security of the State and that such a threat is likely to continue for at least the next 12 months, to outline the details of such threats to the security of the State; to outline the nature of her concerns in this regard; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [32895/23]
View answerAs the Deputy will be aware, I obtained an order of the High Court pursuant to section 3A of the Communications (Retention of Data) Act 2011 (as amended by the Communications (Retention of Data) (Amendment) Act 2022) on 26 June 2023.
The order requires service providers to retain data in all of the categories specified in Schedule 2 of the 2011 Act for a period of 12 months from the date of the making of the order. The data concerned is communications meta data and includes subscriber, traffic and location data. As the Act makes clear it does not apply to the content of any communications.
As set out in the order (as notified to service providers and publicised in the national media last week) the Court granted the order on being satisfied on the basis of information sworn on my behalf, as Minister, that there exists a number of serious and genuine, present and foreseeable threats to the security of the State such that the order is necessary and proportionate for the purpose of safeguarding that security. The sworn information was based on my assessment of the threat taking into account the impact of such retention on the fundamental rights of individuals.
The legislation requires such an assessment to be conducted by the Minister prior to the making of any application and further requires that the Minister must be satisfied that there is a serious and genuine, present or foreseeable threat to the security of the State.
As also required by the legislation, the application was made on an ex parte basis and was heard in camera.
As I hope the Deputy will appreciate, the application and proceedings concern sensitive matters - both the nature of the assessed threat and the manner in which the retention of the data - and ultimately access to that data by the competent bodies - can assist in combatting that threat. For sound reasons of national security it is not, therefore, possible for me to provide further detail on the specific threats grounding the application to the Court.
I can assure the Deputy that the Garda Commissioner and other responsible authorities are fully alert to the threats concerned and are taking any necessary and appropriate action to deal with them.
