According to the Irish Times, the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) received less than a third of the additional funding it sought as part of the national budget for 2020. According to its chief Helen Dixon, this situation leaves the DPC in having to reassess its planned expenditure for next year. In a statement, she said that "the DPC is disappointed that the additional funding allocated is less than one-third of the funding that the DPC requested in its budget submission. The submission reflected a year of experience of regulating under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and highlighted the increased volumes and complexities involved." The Irish Times reports that since the application of GDPR in 2018, the data protection watchdog has seen a significant increase in its workload, with more than 7,000 complaints and almost 5,000 breach notifications in 2019 alone,  and contacts with businesses and consumers seeking guidance in more than 40,000 occasions during the same period.