The office spends around €1.7m a year
Who pays for that?
Ireland’s data chief will get a new place of work more in keeping with her status, as privacy battles with global tech giants loom large. Headquarters of the mighty Irish data cops, in charge of regulating some of the biggest names in the tech industry Currently, the Data Protection Commissioner of Ireland is housed in a …
But I'd rather be based in Portarlington than Dublin AKA "Western Britain"
But €1.7M is nothing compared to some Irish Agencies and organisations and their total lack of Transparency and Incompetence.
Comreg
DCENR (pack of pointless time wasters)
In his address to the Dáil, Ireland’s Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources Alex White laid out the department’s finances for 2015, including a budget of €172m .
Financial Regulator
RTE
Probably Oireachtas (Parliament) Refusing to pay to be on the Irish equivalent of Freeview &Freesat. Only on pay channels recently and Internet for over 7 years.
Even Greek parliament you can get FTA. Or the UK one in Netherlands, France, Spain, Portugal and Ireland.
"Data cops in charge of Facebook, LinkedIn, Google get a new office
But HQ remains next to corner store in the middle of Irish nowhere"
If Facebook ... etc. had their druthers the office would be a few hundred miles west of Irish nowhere. The only reason it isn't is because data cops are not allowed near Bermudian Banks Silicon Valley Mission Critical Facilities.
I bet the 'Convenience Store' has a special combination of buttons on the cash register which will flip the shop counter upside down, revealing a shiny rail-based transporter which will carry up to three people to a secret underground lair where Stan Smith and Patrick Stewart work to protect the world from evil.
There was a policy of decentralization in setting up government departments in Ireland when the office was set up. I always get the feeling that we have a data protection commissioner because we need to be compliant with EU law not because its a good idea to have someone watching the space.
The location is probably also coupled with the data protection officer asking some important and awkward questions of various governments down through the years. Typically our watchdogs are toothless tigers but the data protection commissioner has bitten some big important arses in the last few years. Its no coincidence that the funding for the department has remained static even though the workload has increased dramatically.
An alternative location could be in a multi-million Euro office block right in the middle of an area with stupendously high cost of living figures.
Data/internet business and government regulation offices can be anywhere with internet access. Why NOT put them in areas where the cost of living and office space aren't at a premium?
the building is about 100ft deep, 2 storeys high, and one room wide. About enough for 10 medium offices. More than enough for the Irish Govt and DPC whitewashing of EU data handover to the US, NSA, GCHQ via FB etc.
The Irish Data Commissioner is funded directly by the US corporations that they are supposed to be monitoring. All EU data is handed over without so much as a by your leave.
In the same way as our government cynically allowed US rendition flights and US troops to transit at Shannon even though we have neutrality written into our constitution.
Apt that this office is in Portarlington where you probably cannot get a fast enough internet connection to even open Facebook.
The biggest joke of all is that around the corner of the junction on the other side of the Centra shop is a business calling itself a Muck-Truck-Disrtibutor. You couldn't make it up.