Government insists it cannot name lawyers working for it

Séamus Woulfe

The Dáil public accounts committee was told last October that lawyers working for the Government on the high-profile Apple tax case could not be named.

However, Ireland’s data protection watchdog said it disagreed that naming barristers would breach the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The Data Protection Commission gave the example of its own recent correspondence to the committee about fees it had paid to barristers.

Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe has insisted that the advice received from Attorney General Séamus Woulfe is “clear I cannot do that”.

Mr Donohoe told the Irish Examiner: “The advice I have gotten to my department, which I have now read, is really clear.

“I am being advised that while I can release legal fees for companies, which I have done, and while I can release total legal fees, which I’ve done, I cannot, nor should I, release legal fees that are paid to individuals.”