Vehicle Registration Data Exchange with the United Kingdom: Motion
Seanad Éireann — 2026-04-23
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Pauline Tully (SF), Cultural and Educational Panel

Sinn Féin will not be opposing this motion but there is a serious need for safeguards to be established on how the relevant data is stored and used. The proposal involves the transfer of personal data, including names, addresses and vehicle details, from the national vehicle and driver file to British authorities so the Minister must, as the Minister for justice, assure the Oireachtas robust safeguards are in place to ensure this data is not misused, retained longer than necessary or shared with third parties. Given Britain is now a third party under EU law standards of protection must be equivalent to EU GDPR. The proven framework agreed by EU countries in 2008 was intended for serious criminal offences not routine or low-level enforcement so it is important this data is used strictly for preventing and investigating serious crime, as originally intended. We must ensure data-sharing arrangements do not contribute to the kind of surveillance most people would reject.
Separately from an EU framework, we have to recognise we have policing and specifically road traffic policing challenges on the island of Ireland as a result of partition. This particularly impacts Border counties, one of which - County Cavan - I am from. While the Border remains it will unfortunately be used to evade prosecution for road traffic offences so while it is important there is maximum co-operation between North and South in addressing these challenges, the truth is the best solution, as in so many other areas, is Irish unity. It is also worth remembering Protocol 21 attached to the Lisbon treaty protects the right of the Irish people to make decisions in the areas of freedom, justice and security. This is a crucial protection for Irish interests and the Government should be wary of conceding sovereignty on this issue. A slow but steady handing over of sovereignty to the EU undermines democracy and our ability as a country to act in the best interests of the Irish people. Unless there is a compelling reason to the contrary, such as the benefits to crime prevention from sharing information as in this case, Ireland should be making our own decisions on issues in the area of freedom, security and justice.

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Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-04-23/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:51+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-23