SINN FÉIN’S EOIN Ó Broin TD has defended his appearance as a witness at an Oireachtas Committee instead of the party’s general secretary.
The Committee for Housing, Local Government and Heritage was today hearing evidence from officials from various parties as part of its examination of the proposed Electoral Reform Bill.
The discussions focused on how parties canvass and store voter data and whether they are compliant with data protection laws.
Ó Broin, who is a member of the committee, defended his party’s data collection practices amid questions it has faced from the Data Protection Commission.
The committee today heard from the general secretaries of Fine Gael, the Green Party, Labour and the Social Democrats as well as Fianna Fáil’s assistant general secretary.
Ó Broin appeared on behalf of his party, saying that he is “a member of the party leadership and the party’s national strategy group” and that he has worked with Sinn Féin for 20 years.
He said he didn’t believe it was “problematic” that he is a member of the committee and would be a witness at the committee.
He said that he would not “ask questions of himself” but that he would ask questions “as I’m entitled to do” and “happily answer questions”.
“As per the letter of invitation to the party, it was an invitation to the secretary general or their nominee and the party has chosen me as their nominee. So I’m quite happy to fulfil that role. My understanding is there’s nothing in standing orders to prohibit such a decision,” Ó Broin said.
Green Party chair of the committee Steven Matthews TD said the letter to parties had asked for the presence of the “general secretaries or assistant general secretaries of the parties….. or their nominee”.
It appears that Deputy Ó Broin has been nominated as the representative of the general secretary of Sinn Féin.
“It is an unusual situation I have to admit that somebody is appearing both as a witness and as a member of the committee,” he said.
Matthews told the Sinn Féin deputy that he would not be able to ask questions because “witnesses don’t question witnesses”.
Fine Gael Senator John Cummins objected to Sinn Féin’s decision to send Ó Broin as its representative and said that the committee should request that the party’s general secretary appears instead.
“I just think it’s an affront to this committee to be perfectly frank with you,” Cummins said.
I would question what Sinn Féin has to hide by sending someone like Eoin Ó Broin that has absolute privilege to this committee, over and above the general secretary of the party and I’d be formally requesting that the General Secretary comes before this committee, along with someone from People Before Profit and the independent group as well.
Abú
During the course of the committee, most of the TDs and Senators focused their questions on Ó Broin, with the Dublin Mid-West defending his party’s Abú electoral database.
Ó Broin was asked to address reports in the Sunday Independent that Sinn Féin activists were told in a training manual to use personal information posted online to establish the address of a potential voter and that this was searchable within the Abú system.
Ó Broin said that the training manual in question “was about the use of social media and not Abú” and that the person who wrote the manual was incorrect.
“It’s clear in hindsight that the person who wrote those particular sentences wasn’t accustomed with the system. It is not possible to upload information onto the Abú system from social media,” Ó Broin said.
“The safeguard for this is the Data Protection Commissioner who is reviewing all of these matters and we’re giving her full access to all of this information and she’ll make her determination and all of this in time.”
Ó Broin said that he could not give a figure as to the number of people who have access to the system.
He said that the party “doesn’t centrally control” the system and that “two or three people” in each local constituency have access to it.
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