The Dublin Circuit Court has dismissed an appeal by John Healy against a Data Protection Commissioner decision concerning Irish Life’s disclosure of information about his pension to trustees in his bankruptcy.
Judge John O’Connor ruled on 29 March 2023 that the Commissioner’s decision was not vitiated by a serious error. The appeal concerned the lawfulness of processing the pension information in Ireland, not whether the pension itself formed part of Healy’s bankruptcy estate.
Healy had worked for Irish Life Assurance and joined its staff pension scheme in 1985. After a 1990 share offering, the scheme’s assets and liabilities, including his pension, were transferred to the Irish Life Benefits scheme under a High Court order. He left the company in May 2011 and later moved to the UK. He was declared bankrupt there in 2013, and trustees appointed in the bankruptcy sought pension information from Irish Life.
Healy argued that the trustees used his personal data in later proceedings claiming the pension belonged to the bankruptcy estate. He submitted that later UK and European court decisions clarified that an Irish pension could not be included in the estate and that the trustees therefore had no legitimate interest in obtaining the information.
The Commissioner had decided in May 2020 that Healy’s consent to disclosure was not sufficiently specific or informed. However, she found that the trustees could rely on the legitimate-interests provision of the Data Protection Acts 1988 and 2003: they had an interest in considering his assets while administering the bankruptcy, and disclosure was not unwarranted by prejudice to his rights.
The Commissioner argued that the appeal was limited by the “Orange Test”: Healy had to show, on the balance of probabilities, a serious and significant error in the decision-making process. The Commissioner also submitted that trustees could have an interest in pension information even where pension rights were excluded from the bankruptcy estate, including to assess possible excessive contributions or seek an income payments order.
Judge O’Connor accepted that distinction. The court said later case law clarified ownership of the pension but did not prevent disclosure. It accepted the Commissioner’s examples of possible trustee powers under English insolvency law and concluded, taking the decision as a whole and recognising the Commissioner’s specialist knowledge, that no serious error had been shown. The appeal was dismissed; the judgment did not decide whether the pension was part of the bankruptcy estate.