In an article entitled “Taxing and woolly data retention laws will discourage new business” published yesterday, barrister Ronan Lupton was quoted as a saying that “a serious offence is not defined in relation to Irish law”.

Mr Lupton actually said that the definition of a serious offence in Irish law, an offence with a sentence of five years or more, conflicts with an EU directive on data retention which has been transposed into Irish law through the Communications (Retention of Data) Act 2011.