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THE DEPARTMENT OF Finance feared it couldn’t even publish an anonymised list of pensions for former ministers and officeholders because it would be too easy to identify them.
Each year, the Department had printed a list of former taoisigh, ministers, presidents, along with other ex-officeholders and how much they received in their annual pension.
However, the 2017 list was never published due to concerns over data protection, including that even an anonymous list could create a breach.
Internal emails reveal how concerns were first raised early in the summer after their ongoing publication was brought up at a GDPR meeting.
The pension details always “attract great media interest”, one email said.
“At a recent GDPR course it was suggested that we shouldn’t actually be doing this as we would be releasing the name and gross amount paid and in breach of GDPR,” wrote an official.
Publishing
Consideration was given to some other form of publishing, either anonymously or in aggregate for groups like former Taoisigh, ministers, presidents, or other officeholders.
In a later email, the Department of Finance data protection officer Colm O’Neill said: “Appreciate if we could have a chat about this publication given that it identifies individuals – I’m not aware of any legal basis for processing this personal data.
Even if the names of the individuals were anonymised, it wouldn’t be that difficult to identify the former office holders if compared with last year’s publication.
O’Neill said that the Department of Finance was not even the controller of the pension data and was taking it from its sister department the Department of Public Expenditure.
Discussion between officials also raised the possibility that figures for previous years – which remain on the department website – might have to be deleted too.
In one email, an official said:
My initial view would be that unless someone can identify a lawful basis to publish the data, it shouldn’t be published and anything up already should be removed.
In later correspondence, the Department said that the introduction of GDPR [the General Data Protection Regulations] in May had changed things dramatically.
“What applied before 25 May and what applies now are two very different things,” said an email.
As the deadline for publishing the Department’s Finance Accounts for 2017 approached in late July, the Department was still unsure what to do about the pension figures.
Personal data
However, on July 27, it was confirmed that the figures – which had been available online dating back to 2009 – would not be made public.
An email said the information constituted “personal data” and that the ex-politicians and officeholders involved should not be made identifiable in this way.
A message from Helen Codd, the data protection officer of the Department of Public Expenditure, said the legal advice was that publication had to be halted.
“I … would appreciate if the practice of issuing this material with the Finance Accounts as a matter of routine ceases with immediate effect,” she wrote.
The email explained that if the material was subsequently sought under FOI, it would be dealt with “appropriately at that time”.
In a statement, the Department of Public Expenditure said: “Due to the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulations it is our view that the data referenced … [can] no longer be published.”
The Department of Finance said the pension figures were not held by it and it was not for the department to release.
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As a contrast, our newly appointed Taoiseach has frequently disputed the correlation between poverty and ill health and premature mortality. Despite the fact that Veradker is a qualified medical practitioner, his political ideology that poverty is not a concern of government, blinds him to the hugely detrimental impact of poverty on human health.
Diets in poorer area plays a bugger role in life expectancy….
@Paul: When we see that obesity if a factor in First World “poverty” we should wake up and see that PC fake analyse is keeping the poor, poor. Certain political parties need to keep a pool of poor people as voters to get themselves elected and these are the real enemies of the poor.
The private practice model of GP healthcare is not financially viable in poorer areas. Timely Access to GPs is more restricted in the case of poorer people than for those who are more comfortably off.
@Jenny mcCarty: You can qualify that statement, I assuming.
@Tony Daly: quiet the opposite. Workers have to arrange time off work to visit GP and pay 50 to 65€ as they don’t have medical cards.
@Geraoid O’Helidhe: Great, all workers should have them and the public housing close to jobs if required.
Well done for highlighting health inequalities. Not new but larger ignored in ireland.
See the Black Report – very old doc now
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2190/XXMM-JMQU-2A7Y-HX1E?journalCode=joha
Also this affects everyone to some degree as there is a social gradient.
It’s all about choices….
@Gavin Huban: To an extent it is but you have less choices to make or certain choices have a higher cost as a proportion of your income. To eat healthier might be very difficult to afford or even get depending on where you live.
Slightly off topic but one glaring indictment of our health service is that even for private patients, waiting times are only “a matter of month”.
In this country we have now a new norm of having to wait months even privately except where you are a Minister or politician.
@Ger Healy: I completely agree. There is something to be said for a competitive American model of medicine where doctors decide to help people, make money because of their qualifications and expertise, and not be grossly overworked. When I have had to see a specialist, after waiting a very long time for the appointment, I wonder about the waiting list of people behind me and how that must affect the health of the doctor being put under so much pressure day in and day out.
@Ger Healy: The narrative that people are definitely corrupt if they are politicians is wrong and threatens democracy and is similar to the widely held belief that all media are liars.
Put it this way…………………….have you ever seen a bookie riding a bicycle?Go figure!
@Jenny mcCarty: Have you ever asked yourself why you need these gross simplifications, Jenny? I pay a mortgage and work, but I acknowledge this as good fortune, as well as the work ethic and attitude I was lucky enough to inherit – in the long run I’m far better off in all respects. Stop whining – you may need to see the world in such simple terms because you are frightened by its complex problems and just want it to go away. For you and all of us it will, eventually, and this will have been your life – is this the best you can do?
have your say