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Should the Department okay the move it would be up to the Minister to bring the recommendation to Cabinet for final approval.
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Ireland has had a sole commissioner since the creation of the office in 1989 in the wake of the passing of Ireland’s 1988 Data Protection Act. Last month, the then-acting Minister for Justice Heather Humphreys instructed her Department to consider the appointment of a further two commissioners in order to share the burden currently carried by DPC Helen Dixon alone, who has been in the job since 2014. However, the regulator has come in for heated criticism both from Europe and within Ireland in recent times regarding the perceived slow nature of its decision-making processes in holding big tech to account. The DPC is Ireland’s independent data protection regulator, which also doubles as the lead watchdog for many of the world’s largest tech firms who count Ireland as their European home - including Facebook, Google and Twitter.