Sunday Business Post Questions

1. What is your position on the recent software patent directive pushed by the European Commission and what is your view of Ireland's promotion of it?

Firstly I do not disagree in principle with the concept of software patenting where there is a genuine technical innovation, and considering that Ireland is a location for most of the major software houses it is understandable that the Irish Government should support the directive. You must remember that the software industry in Ireland employs in excess of 30,000 people exports in 2002 were approximately €1.7bn and that the sector is a major contributor in terms of corporation tax, and investment in Research and Development, the sector spends on average approx €27,000 per employee on R&D. So it is only logical and right that the Irish Government should be supportive of measures which protect the investment which these companies make. However there are elements of the current directive which I have concerns over. Some of the definitions seem to me to be loosely defined, and this could lead to a patent land grab as we have seen in the US, which would act to the disadvantage of small innovative firms and the open source community. It is a question of balance between protecting the property rights of these who invest in research and development and at the same time ensuring that legislation is not used to crush new and innovative competitors. I am also concerned that we could be seeing a move towards the patenting of business methods which is allowable in the US but which I think is bad for business innovation and without merit. I am not convinced we have got the balance right on this piece of legislation yet.

(ii) What is your view on file-sharing and what, if anything, can the European Parliament do about it?

By this I take you mean file sharing of music, I think this is a case where the response of the industry has been abysmal. Technology has changed the rules of the game and instead of adapting to it and trying to create a viable business model to react to changes in technology, the industry has tried to use legislation to hold back the tide, and plainly it is not working as over 60m people in the US use file sharing. I would urge the industry to create new business models which ensure that artists are compensated for the downloading of their works rather than trying to sue the P2P genie back into the bottle.

(iii) Do you think that the European Parliament can do anything further on spam?

Europe can do a great deal more on the issue of Spam which as well as being a nuisance to e-mail users is a major cost for businesses. The Institute for Information Law in Amsterdam has recently published a report on the European Union which highlights a number of inadequacies in the current approach these include ¢ interpretation of a number of important aspects of the Directive is left to individual countries. So spamming is a criminal offence in Italy - but not in the UK. ¢ many countries have dragged their heels on implementing EU rules. The European Commission has issued warnings to eight countries - Belgium, Germany, Greece, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Finland - for not implementing the directive in time. The IViR study tried to identify potential liabilities for ISPs and business arising as a result of obligations under the directive. It notes that the Directive provides "fails to introduce a strong right" for users to object to their ISPs about deficiencies in spam filtering. The Directive also places extra responsibilities on employers, while giving little in return. Organisations have a duty to protect employees against receiving pornographic email. Businesses also risk being held responsible if rogue employees send out spam from a corporate account. But the directive only prohibits spamming individuals and not the email boxes of businesses. However the vast majority of Spam originates outside the EU so we need a global agreement if we are to seriously address the issue.

(iv) What are your views on data privacy and what could you do as an MEP on this issue?

Data Privacy is huge issue and consumers and citizens are just beginning to wake up to the amount of data that is out there on them and the serious potential for its misuse. This week for example the General Accounting Office in the US revealed that the US Government was engaged in 200 Data Mining projects in 52 agencies and that does not include the classified projects.

I am particularly concerned that the US War on Terror seems to be intent on sacrificing basic human rights such as privacy in its efforts to combat terrorism. The recent over-riding by the European Commission of the European Parliament objections to sharing Airline Data is regrettable. (The agreement was signed on Friday). If elected I would most certainly stand up for the prerogatives of the Parliament as it is the only directly elected body in the Union and as such has a unique moral authority.

My two major areas of concern are protecting Irish jobs in an increasingly competitive international environment .i.e. the competitive threat from outsourcing to India and China and the curtailing drug trafficking and the related issue of people trafficking. Both of these issues are impacted by data privacy.