The European Commission has said that it has no powers to intervene in the appointment of Niamh Sweeney as the third commissioner of the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC).
Commission spokesperson Guillaume Mercier said that EU law required that such appointments be made through a transparent procedure and that candidates have "the qualifications, the experience, the skills, in particular [in terms of] the protection of personal data, required to perform their duties and to exercise their powers."
However, he added: "The commission is not involved in this process and is not empowered to take action with respect to those appointments."
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) today submitted a formal complaint against Ireland to the European Commission over the appointment of Ms Sweeney, a former senior official with the tech giant Meta, to the Irish DPC.
The ICCL said Ireland failed to provide adequate safeguards for independence and impartiality in its process to appoint the new Data Protection Commissioner.
That process led to the appointment of what it called an "ex-Meta lobbyist".
Niamh Sweeney was one of three data protection commissioners appointed to the state regulator last month.
She had previously worked as a lobbyist for Facebook in Ireland, and later for WhatsApp, covering Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Ms Sweeney more recently worked for the Irish fintech company Stripe and a London lobby firm Miltown Partners.
In a statement today, the ICCL said Ireland's appointment process lacked procedural safeguards against conflicts of interest and political interference and may be interpreted by the tech industry as a signal of impunity.
It said EU law requires that independent supervisory authorities must not only be impartial and independent but must also be above any suspicion of partiality.
Following Ms Sweeney's appointment to the Data Protection Commission, a number of digital rights campaigners, including the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, wrote to the Government claiming her appointment would undermine the independence of the regulator, and pointed to its role in enforcing data protection rules across Europe, given the concentration of global tech firms in Ireland.
The Department of Justice said it was fully satisfied with the appointment process.
