Interviewed on RTÉ Radio on Sunday 18 March, Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan declared that data protection legislation “will be changed if required to secure the collection of the €100 household charge”.
Minister Hogan failed to say how he would propose to effect such a change, given the requirement for the rule of law that is a core concept of the Council of Europe Convention for the Protection of Human Rights, with Ireland subject to this European Convention jurisprudence.
In the Cambridge Symposium of March 2000 it was stated that “no matter how desirable the end to be achieved, no interference with a right protected under the European Convention, and specifically Article 8 concerning the Right to Respect for Private and Family Life, is permissible unless the citizen knows the basis for the interference because it is set out in an ascertainable law.”
Minister Hogan is on the record as saying that he expects to reach agreement with the Data Protection Commission shortly to allow the use of information from utility bills to discover who would be classified as having been in default of paying the household tax.
But in the absence of a detailed authorisation by the law, any interference – however justified – would constitute a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights. No such interference can be permitted by executive rules alone.
To be “prescribed by law” or “in accordance with the law” means that there must be an ascertainable legal regime governing the interference in question.
The Data Protection Commissioner Billy Hawkes has said that the law is established to allow the Minister for the Environment to use information from utility bills. Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland on 19 March, Hawkes was not asked by the host to inform listeners as to the specific law at issue – an omission too far at a time when RTE has been accused of a selective disposition towards addressing matters of the utmost importance to the people of Ireland.
Unaware of the legal prerogative in place to permit the acquisition of utility bills against the wishes of the individual, it is vital that this information be immediately revealed to the public at large.
John Kelly
Mullingar, Co Westmeath
