Should the government be able to monitor phone calls and emails?

DRI chair TJ McIntyre warned that Irish law in the area of accessing communication data is quickly becoming a "crucial one" given the presence here of top internet giants, such as Google, Microsoft and Twitter. He said courts and governments in the US and the UK were exploring whether their laws could reach into Ireland and force these companies to disclose personal data. And he said that a pending High Court case taken by DRI is likely to strike down Ireland's laws on data retention. "We have almost nothing in comparative terms [regarding oversight] to what they have in Britain," said Mr McIntyre, a law lecturer in University College Dublin.