Deputy Catherine Murphy has raised that point.

The appointment I referred to never went through the JAAB. The then Government, in its wisdom, made a decision without going through the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board. It was entitled to do that within the law and the Constitution. That was the context then. The context here is that once I was informed that Mr. Justice Woulfe had gone through the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board-----

-----as a suitable candidate for the position on the Supreme Court, I was happy to accept that. Why? It is because the board is chaired by the Chief Justice and includes the presidents of the other four courts, in addition to representatives of the Law Society of Ireland and the Bar Council of Ireland.

In response to Deputy Kelly, I do not want to be embroiling myself in selection processes or appointments, quite frankly.

I am quite happy that the JAAB would recommend someone as suitable. That is good enough for me.

That is why the judicial appointments commission needs to be established.

The Deputy tries to lecture everybody on the separation of powers, but he thinks it is fitting for me to seek correspondence from the Chief Justice-----

-----before any impeachment process happens.

That is wrong.

The Deputy is wrong. It would represent a fundamental breach of the separation of powers.

Yes, it would. The only basis for that correspondence to go public is if it was needed for the assembly of evidence in this House, if the House was deciding to follow an impeachment process. That is a matter for the House to decide, if it so wishes. The Government has made its position clear. The Government has a responsibility under the Constitution, and that is why I made my statement earlier. I made it on behalf of the Government. The Government must vindicate the legitimacy of both this Oireachtas and the Supre…

I have said that the Government fully complied with its duties and responsibilities under the law and the Constitution in appointing Mr. Justice Woulfe to the Supreme Court. He was recommended as a suitable candidate by the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board, and that is it. Where judges have been appointed previously by the Government, one name went to the Cabinet. That is the position.

Is this a question and answer session on the same point? I will answer the question, and the Deputy knows the answer. I and the Leader of the Green Party, Deputy Eamon Ryan, prior to the formation of the Government, were told that Mr. Justice Woulfe-----

Sorry, would you stop wagging your finger and just behave yourself a bit?

The bottom line is very simple and very straightforward. We were simply told that Mr. Justice Woulfe would come through the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board. That is it. As far as I am concerned, he came through the board and was recommended as being suitable for the position. He was an outgoing Attorney General and, in my view, was qualified for the position. In the aftermath of the formation of the Government, as Taoiseach I had no difficulty with the Minister for Justice bringing his name forward. I had no d…

In the context of the pandemic, I am not quite sure how people can be deported, given the various restrictions and rules that govern it. On Deputy Gannon's point about those working in the healthcare service, I do not know the individual cases, but Ireland does not deport too many people in any given year. The Catherine Day report reveals that. There are policy issues that emanate from that in terms of how best to deal with these situations and those fall for consideration by the Government and, ultimately, by the …

I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 4, inclusive, together. My Department is committed to protecting the rights and privacy of individuals in accordance with the European Union General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR, which came into force on 25 May 2018. The Minister for Justice was responsible for the enacting legislation in Ireland and the Data Protection Act 2018 took effect on the same date. In line with the requirements of GDPR, a data protection officer, DPO, was appointed within my Department in November…

In regard to Deputy Boyd Barrett's point, they were met at the time. I was Minister for Education and Science during that period and became Minister for Health and Children in 2000. I established the inquiries in question and was the first Minister to open up the dark chapter in our history relating to industrial schools. We put historians into the Department of Education and Science and we put counselling in place for the people who came to access their records. Some of them discovered they had siblings they had n…

I am not aware that this was an issue.

The Tánaiste has often said to me that he does not believe he has breached the restrictions in regard to Covid-19 regulations, as they have applied from time to time.