Dr Eoin O'Dell

The watchdog has been allocated around €19 million in the 2021 Budget, a 13 per cent increase on the previous year.

Announcing the budget, Justice Minister Helen McEntee said she is “very much aware of the importance of a well-resourced regulator”.

However, Dr Eoin O’Dell, associate professor of law at Trinity College Dublin, said the “indefensible” level of funding was “still not enough”.

In a series of tweets last night, he highlighted that the 2020 Budget had contained only a third of the budget increase requested by the DPC.

“Today, funding increases by just under €2m, which doesn’t even bring the total to what was needed last year, let alone reach what will have been this year’s ask,” he said.