Departmental Data

Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 17 January 2024

Wednesday, 17 January 2024

Questions (1236)

Catherine Murphy

Question:

1236. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will provide a schedule of the personal and or person-specific data sets his Department holds that have been provided and/or shared with other Departments and/or Ministers and/or State bodies and/or agencies and/or local authorities in the past 20 years to date; if he will clarify if the transfer of data and/or records was in aggregated form or on an individual basis; and the reason the data and/or records were provided. [57204/23]

Written answers

Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine

As the Deputy will be aware, the formalisation of processing of personal data was significantly strengthened by the GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018 and was more recently supplemented by the Data Sharing and Governance Act 2019, with the commencement of sections 6(2) and (3) of that Act coming into operation on 16th December 2022. Schedules of personal and or person-specific data that were shared with other public bodies for the last 20 years are therefore not readily available.

My Department and the Offices under its aegis share aggregated and person-specific data sets with Public Sector Bodies, including other Government Departments and in certain cases with State bodies, agencies, and local authorities. Any data sharing undertaken is in line with the Government’s Data Strategy 2019-2023 and has an appropriate legal basis applying to this data sharing. 

My Department operates in line with our legal requirements in this area and adheres to advice provided by the Data Protection Commission in the processing and sharing of personal data.