Criminal Justice (International Cooperation on Electronic Evidence and Other Matters) Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-17
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Catherine Ardagh (FF), Dublin South-Central

The Department is not unsympathetic to SMEs, which are the backbone of our economy. That is very much acknowledged. The web portal that will be used will have a minimal cost. The vast majority of orders in these cases will be directed to a small number of large service providers. However, where a small to medium-sized service provider is subject to an e-evidence order and holds electronic evidence related to the investigation of serious crime, it will have obligations under this regulation. That will be the cost of doing business in this industry. To relieve service providers of these obligations would likely create a gap criminals would exploit by moving to services offered by SMEs and would seriously undermine the effectiveness of the evidence package.
That said, the provisions in sections 38 and 40 are specifically designed to allow the director to remedy breaches by service providers without the need to proceed to investigation or the imposition of fines. In particular, the director can seek a compliance report to clarify the issues and may enter into an agreement with the service provider setting out the steps to be taken to remedy any issues identified. Furthermore, there is a legal obligation on the legal officers under section 50(2)(f) to give special consideration to small and medium-sized enterprises when considering the imposition of fines.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-17/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:09+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-17