The Irish Council of Civil Liberties (ICCL) has accepted that it mistook a letter from the European Commission as pertaining to the appointment of Niamh Sweeney to the Data Protection Commission in September, when it in fact related to a separate ICCL complaint to Brussels.
The ICCL had said the letter indicated that the European Commission was seeking more information from the Government on Ms Sweeney's appointment as the third regulator on the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC).
The body now accepts the letter relates to a separate ICCL complaint to the European Commission.
RTÉ News had reported on Wednesday, on the basis of the ICCL’s mistaken understanding of the commission letter, that Brussels was seeking more information from the Government on the appointment of Ms Sweeney.
The ICCL now accepts that the letter, dated 19 November, related to another complaint on a separate EU directive.
The ICCL had originally sent a formal complaint to the European Commission in September over the appointment of Ms Sweeney on the basis that she had formerly worked as a senior executive with tech giant Meta.
The ICCL said Ireland had failed to provide adequate safeguards for independence and impartiality in its process to appoint the new Data Protection Commissioner.
The body had also joined some 40 civil society groups and data privacy campaigners in writing to Taoiseach Micheál Martin and the DPC, claiming that "serious questions about the DPC’s independence at a time when its impartiality is of critical importance for the entire [European] Union, and when public trust is already fragile".
Last month, the European Commission said that it had no powers to intervene in the appointment of Ms Sweeney as the third commissioner of the DPC.
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."
It is understood the second complaint lodged by the ICCL relates to the EU’s Representative Actions Directive.
