The Data Protection Commissioner Helen Dixon, whose term of office is due to end in 2024, is to leave the role on 19 February.
Ms Dixon announced her departure date in a post on LinkedIn, in which she said it had been a privilege and an honour to have served in the position since her appointment in September 2014.
Because so many of the social media firms have their European headquarters in Ireland, the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) has played a lead role in investigating privacy breaches at companies such as Meta and TikTok.
The DPC has been criticised in the past for taking too long to complete its investigations and for being too soft on big tech but in recent years the office has imposed record fines on platforms under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
"The full implementation of the GDPR will remain a work-in-progress across the EU and, as the larger-scale enforcement cases now conclude, we see in Ireland and beyond, that these decisions are often subject to judicial challenge," Ms Dixon wrote in her LinkedIn post.
"It will take a further number of years to bottom-out definitive interpretations of applications of this principles-based law but the groundwork is now well laid," she added.
In July 2022, the Government announced plans to expand the office of the DPC due to its increased workload by bringing to three the number of commissioners.
Last month, the Department of Justice advertised for the positions of two additional Data Protection Commissioners.
