'No justification' for State data-collection powers in proposed bill, say experts

The new legislation will also allow for 'two entirely unprecedented' powers that are 'clearly in breach of European Court of Justice case law', according to TJ McIntyre, an associate professor of law at UCD and director of Digital Rights Ireland.

The Government has "no justification" for scanning the networks of small businesses, and even homes, under the National Cyber Security Bill, data protection advocates have said.

Two of Ireland’s most prominent privacy advocacy organisations, Digital Rights Ireland and the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, will today tell an Oireachtas committee that the pending bill will allow for the scanning of the networks, despite such provisions being absent from the European legislation from which the Irish bill takes its lead.