Data Retention in Ireland - stealth, bad faith, and contempt for the democratic process

I've written a brief article for Data Protection Law and Policy on the development of data retention in Ireland. As you'll guess from the following excerpt, I'm not impressed with the way in which it's been passed into law.

"The history of data retention law in Ireland has been marked by stealth, bad faith, and a shocking contempt for the democratic process. The 2002 Direction in particular stands out as an attempt to make law in secret, by the abuse of an unrelated statutory power, and then to stymie any judicial review by directing the recipients of the Direction to remain silent as to its existence. Moreover, when finally forced by the Data Protection Commissioner to proceed by primary legislation, the Department of Justice did so in 2005 without notice, in a way calculated to exclude any public scrutiny, and ignoring earlier assurances that draft legislation would be published and debated."

PDF of the article here.