Eamon Ryan is Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources.
Now the last time I checked Communications included such things as ISPs, broadband, internet – you know, that sort of thing.
I was also under the rather naive impression that Dail ministers couldn’t opt out of parts of their own portfolio. You know, ignore those bits of their portfolio that might make them actually have to deal with real and substantive issues.
As MD of Blacknight I am our representative to the Irish ISP Association (ISPAI). I’m also on the organisation’s working group for data retention.
We’ve been working with our members and the various government departments and Gardai on the transposition of the directive into Irish law. I won’t bore you with the details of this at the moment – it would also put me in a bad mood to even think about it!
A couple of weeks ago the ISPAI sent letters to various Irish government ministers including Mr Eamon Ryan, Minister for Communications (etc)
The letters attached (pdf) are the letter from the ISPAI to Mr Ryan and his signed response.
Considering the directive itself refers specifically to communications (Directive 2006/24/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 March 2006 on the retention of data generated or processed in connection with the provision of publicly available electronic communications services or of public communications networks and amending Directive 2002/58/EC) his reply has left me more than a little confused:
I have no function in this matter
Sorry? You’re the minister for Communications. How on earth can you hope to get away by saying you have no function in this matter? The directive affects just about everything your department is in charge of.
So I have to ask dear reader, what purpose does Eamon Ryan serve?
EamonRyanispailetter.pdf
eamonryan-reply.pdf
Wood pellets! Wood somebody think of the wood pellets (see what I did there?)!
Hi Michele,
What purpose indeed?
In the run-up to last year’s general election my (then) six year-old twins had me in stitches. They were a bit bemused by all the campaign posters. One of them turned to me and asked very matter-of-factly: “Daddy, what are all of those people on the pictures for?”
I pondered the question for a while before realising that I didn’t have an answer for her. But then, I guess that’s Irish politics!
Have you sent the letter to Dermot Ahern as suggested in the email? I’m interested to hear what he says.
@Paul
A similar letter was sent to Dermot Ahern. As far as I know no reply has been received to date.
We know that Justice has to be involved, but for the Minister to try and pass the buck like this is laughable.
Michele
While this may sound flippant, that’s not my intention, if this is not resolved to the satisfaction of ISPAI members, could you impose a standard “Information Request Fee” of ?
If the Gardai are making the requests, then it could come out of Dermot’s DoJ budget, no?
Ah sure now, sure cant someone else look after it ?
Isn’t that the way we do things here in Ireland ?
He was probably running out the door to meet a few pals for a few holes of golf before lunch !
I heard he was only given a spot in the Dail as a sort of book end, so no one would fall off the end of the row of seats.
You’re always in a bad Michele, so tell us in detail 😉
Ah no seriously – that looks like a rushed response from him doesn’t it? Looks like he didn’t even read the letter!
But then again, this is from our government who don’t even read the Lisbon Treaty and are giving it the thumbs, so surely he could have done the same here no?? 😛
@Lar
They’ve explicitly stated that there is no cost recovery.
The standard info request fee wouldn’t cover any of the costs involved in retaining all the data nevermind trying to sift through it all based on a vague query (which is what you are more likely to get)
Michele
Tom
He’s minister for Communications.
He needs to take responsibility AND interest in matters that affect his department’s remit
He cannot seriously expect to SIGN letters like that and hope to get away with it.
Michele
Had the exact same problem myself some years back Michele. Got pretty much the same response from Dempsey when he was in power with respect to an issue that I was having with a certain Irish telco and Comreg. I also received a similar response from O’Donoghue when he was in charge of Tourism and I wrote to him with a complaint against a certain Irish national tourism advocate and what was at the time a complete snubbing of my home city Waterford in any of their advertisements.
It would appear that all ministers in the cabinet do absolutely nothing related to their brief – what they actually do is a complete mystery.
Didn’t really want to bring up the Lisbon Treaty here…. but since you started it… 😉
Isn’t that what Charlie McCreevy and Brian Cowen have said about the Treaty? LOL!!
Ah no, I will try and be serious – I completely agree with you, but do you seriously expect anything else from our government? I don’t know if you listen to NewsTalk 106 at all – but this is a common complaint from people on this station. Policitians just get their dogs bodies to respond to these letters because they don’t have enough time in the day to answer “all the letters” they receive on a daily basis.
The second the Department of Justice tell the ISPs they can recover the costs, they’ll all happily partake in spying on innocent people. Will the ISPAI sign a document stating that even if they recoup costs they won’t agree to this?
Damien
Cost recovery is only part of the issue.
The directive is vaguely worded and none of the ISPs want to fall foul of privacy legislation.
Other member states are going to retain data for 6 months, while Ireland wants 12.
The content of emails is not meant to be retained – only the data pertaining to the connections and “attempted” connections.
Again this is vaguely worded and implementing it is messy. For example, my own mail server rejects mail from a lot of places, yet there are connection attempts. Logging this for 12 months is one thing, but retrieving anything useful from it is another.
ISPAI has made and will continue to make representations to government on the matter, but it is not wholly a matter of the Dept. of Justice.
Regards
Michele
I don’t think you read this properly Michele .
What you are being told here is that as far as the Minister is concerned this is a piece of legislation which is not related to communications at all , and is not going to be part of anything that the department of Communications is going to force through on anyone . It’s up to you therefore to decide whether or not the department of Justice is actually ever going to enforce this legislation . Think of the pattern in Irish Law , legislation comes in , thedepartment of Justice makes a call on whether they want to actually implement it or not , when it’s implemented they then decide whether they’ll ever try and enforce it , then they ask the Gardai if they might be able to fit it in , then the Gardai make a call on whether it’s actually possible or not to enforce and then if they even bother the courts make an ultimate call in a test case on whether or not we should pay any attention to it . Most of our law is like this and of course important things make it through ( taxation serious criminal law wheelie bin charges etc) but things like insider trading laws , provisional licence holder regulations etc. just seem too hard to implement so it’s not bothered with.
That’s the reality here I’d say , the law will come in the implemetation will be vague and the enforcement will be ,at best voluintary . If you bothered to go for a round of golf with the man you might have it all explained , off the record , personally to you .
Best of Luck with it though , But seriously Kill the RIAA , it’s their fault.
Sean
While the legislation may need to be enacted by one department that does not mean that other departments cannot have any say in the matter.
Or maybe that’s why Irish governments make such a mess of things?
The reply from Ryan clearly disavows all responsibility and interest from an important piece of legislation that will have a tangible impact on the very area of government he is supposed to be in charge of.
Regards
Michele
Im not a Green Party member but in fairness to Eamon Ryan, he is one of the very few people in Irish politics who is not asleep to the climate crisis, and who is trying to take steps to mitigate Ireland’s contribution to it and ensure we are able to adapt to the changes that are underway, not just in relation to the effects of climate change but from the end of cheap oil too.
Deserves a hell of a lot of credit on this one. If he is successful we will look back and be very thankful that someone had the foresight to see what a catastrophe short-sighted energy policies would be for Ireland.
Dave,
That’s all well and good and I’m glad to see that he’s able to do something, but he’s Minister for *Communications*, Energy and Natural Resources. Communications is just as much a part of his portfolio as Energy and Natural Resources.
Niall.
@Dave
What climate crisis? I for one welcome this nice weather we’ve been having. If this ip one of the byproducts of Global Warning, then i’m all for it.
Mark
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