The Social Protection Minister is strongly defending the government's decision to challenge the Data Protection Commissioner's findings on the Public Services Card.
This evening, Minister Regina Doherty published the commissioner's report, which finds the card is in breach of the law.
The data-privacy watchdog rules the state must delete data held on 3 million citizens - but the Minister says it would be illegal to do so.
She confirms the state will be appealing the findings in court - once the commissioner issues an enforcement notice:
"The advice that I have from the Attorney General is that we have a very strong legal basis to do exactly what was envisaged as far back as 1998. The law was enacted in 2005 and subsequently amended on a number of occasions.
On that basis we have to support the successive government policies, and we will be defending the policy."
