In the Seanad on 24 April 2002, I said: 

I welcome the Bill, although I do not understand the logic of introducing it on the eve of the dissolution of the Dáil. I am not sure what is the purpose of that because it is difficult to see the Bill being enacted.

The European approach to data protection differs greatly from that of the United States. My daughter was in America last year and she wanted to rent an apartment. She phoned home to say that the landlord required a guarantee from someone who earned $80,000 per year. I contacted a friend who I thought was well off - I did not mention the $80,000 - and stated that my daughter required someone to act as a guarantor for her. He said he would be happy to oblige and, when I asked for it, he provided me with his social security number. However, he was turned down because apparently he does not earn $80,000 per year. I subsequently rang another individual who was approved.

I did not realise that the kind of information to which I refer is available to anyone in America. I had assumed that protection and individuality were valued in that country but, as Senator Cregan and Senator Farrell both stated, the Americans take a different approach to this matter. In America, personal data is not considered personal in any real sense as we understand it. One can buy access there to an extraordinary range of personal information that people in Europe would consider private. It is the objective of Directive 95/46/EC to protect such information.

This is a practical issue and it arises in cases where companies operating in Europe want to transfer data to the American jurisdiction. This happens all the time because an increasing number of companies, particularly those that are important to our economy, work seamlessly on a worldwide basis. What happens when two different philosophies regarding personal information clash with each other?

Who wins?

It is clear that the American way wins. Under the directive, data can be transferred to any country that is deemed by the EU to operate safe practices and the US is deemed to be such a country. It is worth pointing out that this arrangement, however useful it may be in business and commerce, is essentially a political arrangement. Europe and the US confronted each other on this issue and Europe blinked first. The result is that a coach and four is being driven through the protections set out in the Bill and we must be aware of that.

It is interesting that whenever an issue arises concerning personal freedoms such as the question of carrying compulsory identity cards, which has again arisen as a result of the crime situation in this country, the spectre conjured up is that of Big Brother. In my opinion it is not so much the State about which we should be concerned in this area, but rather other entities that will not be bound by the regulations or principles that usually constrain the behaviour of the State. It seems to me to be a shocking invasion of privacy that details of a person's police record can be bought on the open market in the United States.

There are certain kinds of information that it is right for the State to possess, but these should not be accessible to anyone else. Telephone companies know a great deal about people, credit card companies know where they spend their money and supermarkets know whether their children are boys or girls, whether they drink much wine or whether they own a dog. Members will recall the case of the nominee for the Supreme Court in the United States and the fact that on the day before he was to appear in the Senate, details of all the videos he had rented for the previous five years were published. I do not remember whether there was a scandal about this, but it is a matter of concern that such personal information is readily available in the US. There appears to be an uneasy compromise that allows the free transfer of data from Europe to the United States and I hope this will not come back to haunt us in the future.

The Bill is the last of a fairly short list of legislation relating to information society matters introduced by the Government during the past five years. When I consider that period, I cannot help but be struck by the way the drive to make Ireland a world leader in the information society has been lost. In 1996 I noticed a sudden upsurge of interest in this area, which is one I had been championing for some years. Overnight it became the conventional wisdom that the information society offered Ireland a unique opportunity to wipe out the structural and geographical constraints and obstacles which stood in our way for centuries because of our position on the periphery of Europe. We appeared to embrace the prospect of a new industrial revolution in which, this time, Ireland could play a full role because of modern communications.

I am not decrying the progress to date but, while I acknowledge we have achieved a great deal, it is not nearly enough. For instance, it was a correct and very imaginative stroke for the State to get into the business of bringing broadband capacity here and acting as a wholesale distributor of this capacity in the initial years. Unfortunately, however, the initiative was not carried through to the equally vital task of distributing broadband capacity around the country. Only now, very late in the day, are we trying to play catch up in this area. I am not sure it is fully realised that having broadband available throughout the country is not sufficient given that its potential will never be realised unless it is sold cheaply enough to enable universal access. If it is too expensive, people will not use it. Therefore, it should not become a niche market restricted only to businesses which can afford it. If we are really serious about becoming a world leader in the information age, we must regard broadband as a tool of mass communication.

Those of us with children will realise that youngsters - indeed, anybody under the age of 40 - never write letters. They text and e-mail each other using poor yet understandable English. Recently, I was in Singapore which, a couple of years ago, in recognition of the fact that it was set to become an e-commerce hub, decided to give every citizen an e-mail address. While I am sure An Post still has a bright future, I would not like to be in my old position of chairman as I would be hoping that people would continue to write letters in the traditional manner. Like Singapore, we should aim to give every household an e-mail address.

Another area in which we have made useful progress is e-government. A recent survey showed that Ireland leads the European Union in this respect, which is a tremendous and worthwhile achievement. Even in embryo form, the two websites which bundle Government services - Oasis and Basis - are doing an excellent job. They demonstrate that the real potential of the information age is not just one of productivity. The gain from e-government is not just efficiency, but also effectiveness; it works and makes it possible for Government to reach out to more people more quickly than ever before. This is the reason that I and other Members of the House have proposed that matters which must be published in newspapers should also be published on the Internet. E- government gives citizens a measure of control over the way in which they do business with Government in a way that never existed before.

It is a pity we have not yet done enough to seek out the benefits of the information society in regard to the political process, about which this House should be so proud, as opposed to the administration of Government services. New technology offers us dramatic opportunities to draw citizens into the process of law making. If we really believe in democracy, we should be rushing to embrace the opportunity to do everything we possibly can in this area. We wring our hands and bemoan the apathy and cynicism that permeate our society in regard to the political process and complain about not getting thanks for the work we do. This is akin to talking about the weather in that we never do anything about it. However, unlike the weather, this is a challenge we can do something about.

This Bill has implications right across the board, for us as individual citizens and for every business enterprise operating here. It is in the latter area that I feel most steam has gone out of our earlier drive to become a world leader in the information age. We have lost a great deal of early enthusiasm. Somewhere along the way the Government appears to have lost a grip on the vision it had five years ago. It seems to have receded from being an urgent priority to being just one of a list of platitudes. Perhaps it lost some faith in the project when the dotcoms collapsed about a year ago. Collapse may be too strong a word for what happened, but if it led to a revision of Government thinking, as I am suggesting, or a lessening of its interest in the area of the information age and Ireland's opportunities in it, the mistake should be speedily rectified. The setback experienced by the dotcoms was nothing more than the sort of shake up and shake out which inevitably happens when there is a new technology or development. Invariably too many people get involved and while some fail, others succeed. The experience merely cleared the decks so that real development could begin under more realistic circumstances, which is, I suggest, possible.

The fact that this Bill implements an EU directive which has been in operation, as the Minister of State informed us, since as far back as 1995, is an indicator of the way in which the steam has gone out of the Government's approach to the information age. I hope the new Government, whatever its shape or hue, will rediscover this opportunity and run with it as fast as possible. I welcome the Bill.