I welcome this. As regards An Garda Síochána doing its policing duty, obviously, it will be very welcome. As regards the whole initiative of ANPR and number-plate recognition and the sharing of data, hopefully this will help, obviously, given the fact that we have a Border on this island. There is also the amount of traffic coming from Britain into Ireland and vice versa. It will particularly help in relation to serious crime. As we know, it is trans-border. On both islands, this will create a co-operation that is desperately needed. From a policing point of view, I have read the Minister's statement as regards the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, bringing in the statutory instrument. Could the Minister, Deputy O'Callaghan, provide the timelines for when this will actually take effect? If he were to have any information on that, it would be interesting. Second, obviously, we need to be very careful as regards the use of data here because this data will identify people and so on. We need to be very careful to make sure the standards that are maintained here meet with our national standards and EU standards, given the fact that we are dealing with a third country, outside the EU, in the United Kingdom. As I have raised here in the Dáil and in committees on numerous occasions, I am not convinced that An Garda Síochána has been in any way exemplary when it comes to the retention of data, whether the issue has related to DNA, fingerprints or many other areas. My concerns there would lead me to want to know when this will be brought in and to get an assurance about the manner in which this data will be retained, the duration of its retention and how it will be used. That should obviously be done to the standard that is required under national legislation and legislation at a European level to maintain those standards.

Sentiment score: 0.19