Section 12 of the Communications (Retention of Data) Act 2011 is amended by the substitution of the following subsections for subsection (4):

"(4) The designated judge may, if he or she considers it desirable to do so, communicate with the Taoiseach or the Minister concerning disclosure requests and with the Data Protection Commission in connection with its functions under the Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Acts 1988 to 2018.

(5) In this section, 'Data Protection Regulation' means Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 [OJ No. L 119, 4.5.2016, p.1] on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation).".