EU response: Identity cards would not have stopped the London bombings but if Britain introduces them, Ireland will have to look at the cost of not following suit, Minister for Justice Michael McDowell said yesterday.
He was in Brussels for a special meeting of EU justice ministers to improve co-operation in the fight against terrorism in the aftermath of the London bombings.
The Minister said staff from government departments were studying introducing identity cards in Ireland but gave no date for when they would finish work.
The justice ministers vowed to speed up anti-terrorism measures such as the compulsory storage of phone and internet usage records following the London bombings.
In a statement of solidarity, the ministers gave new momentum to a detailed list of planned anti-terror measures with firm deadlines for their adoption. That included an October target date for the data logging plan, proposed after the March 2004 Madrid train bombings.
British home secretary Charles Clarke said police and intelligence probes had shown it was "fantastically important" to have access to telecoms records to establish and prove in court links between suspects.
In a non-binding resolution last month, the European Parliament rejected the proposal to make telecoms firms keep data for at least a year, citing concerns about proportionality, cost, privacy and civil liberties.
But Mr Clarke said civil liberties had to be treated proportionately. Storing phone records could not be compared with sending a suspect to a country practising torture. "I argue that it is a fundamental civil liberty of people in Europe to be able to go to work on their transport system in the morning without being blown up and subject to terrorist attack."
European Commission president José Manuel Barroso said the EU executive would propose parallel legislation in September to put data retention on a proper legal basis and address the privacy and cost concerns.
Other measures to be adopted during Britain's six-month EU presidency include better information-sharing among national law enforcement services, steps to combat terrorist funding, work to combat the radicalisation and recruitment for terrorism of young Muslims, and measures to protect critical infrastructure.
Justice and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini said the time had come to "blame and shame" member states that were not implementing anti-terrorism measures agreed after the September 11th, 2001 attacks on the United States and the March 2004 Madrid train bombings.
On the ID card issue Mr McDowell listed the arguments over whether or not to introduce identity cards, but suggested that Irish people would want to maintain free travel with Britain.
"It's simplistic to say that if the UK does it, Ireland must follow suit in exactly the same way," said Mr McDowell.
"[ But] if the Irish people took a piece of paper and started writing down the pros and cons and if common travel area is all on one side of that line, I'd say people would be very realistic about where their priorities lay." The projected cost of the identity card scheme in Britain was worrying, he added.
The British government said citizens would have to pay £93 for a card but an independent report by the London School of Economics said the cost would be £300 per card, approximately €500 .
Mr McDowell said there was a strong sense of solidarity with the UK at the meeting.