Criminal Justice (International Cooperation on Electronic Evidence and Other Matters) Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages
Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-07
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Chris Andrews (SF), Labour Panel

I move amendment No. 2:
In page 15, between lines 14 and 15, to insert the following: “(g) ensure minimal administrative burden is placed on small to medium-sized service providers.”.
Ireland has a particular responsibility in terms of this legislation, given the number of service providers based here. Up to 600 service providers could be designated as addresses and they are expected to receive upwards of 300,000 orders annually as opposed to the 2,000 orders it is expected that Ireland will issue to service providers across all other EU states. As such, there is a concern as to the administrative burden that this would place on SMEs. It is right, therefore, that the director has it as a function to ensure this burden is minimised.
Amendment No. 2 seeks to address the point. While it is expected that a small handful of big tech companies will receive 90% of the requests, that still leaves a sizeable volume in terms of SMEs. The Department's SME test stated that for SMEs in particular the requirement under the e-evidence package for authorities to nominate an addressee as a single point of contact for law enforcement authorities seeking to access electronic evidence will make it easier and more affordable for service provides to authenticate production orders. However, the most significant burden on SMEs identified by the Commission's assessment is the obligation to designate and empower a legal representative. This is all taken directly from the Department's regulatory analysis. For SMEs not already engaged in voluntary direct co-operation activities, the e-evidence package presents a new regulatory burden that comes with potential legal, administrative and technical costs. SMEs that do not designate an addressee, for example, or that fail to comply with the e-evidence directive or regulation will be exposed to administrative penalties. While many large service providers will create their own infrastructure to connect with the decentralised IT system, a requirement for SMEs to do the same would have a disproportionate impact.
That report says that consideration is being given to the development of a web-based interface, which will allow service providers to communicate securely with authorities without having to establish their own infrastructure. Has this happened and will it be available by the time obligations are in force? Will SMEs be trained on it in advance? What is particularly concerning is that the Department has as yet no idea of the number of microenterprises with fewer than nine employees that will have to meet their obligation but does know, according to its own report, that SMEs will incur additional administrative costs.
Further to amendment No. 2, amendment No. 4 is needed to ensure that guidance has been provided to SMEs in advance of obligations kicking in. Likewise, amendment No. 7 seeks to protect SMEs should the Government's delay in bringing forward this legislation by the transposition deadline last February result in them being unready. Guidance must be provided and the online portal must be ready. Sinn Féin appreciates that mechanisms exist allowing for an adjudicator to opt not to impose a financial penalty in terms of micro-SMEs where requests are out of hours. However, some of these orders can have compliance times measured in hours, not days. Even an SME with 20 to 30 staff might struggle to have an appropriately trained person on hand effectively 24-7 who is able to process a request within those incredibly limited timeframes. Therefore, if these new obligations are to be placed on SMEs, the Government must hold up its end of the bargain and ensure that SMEs are adequately prepared before any financial penalties can even be considered to be brought to bear.

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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/2026-07-07/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:09+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-07