44. (1) A sample taken under regulations made under this section from a person prescribed under subsection (2) (in this section called a “prescribed person”) shall be used to generate a DNA profile in respect of the prescribed person for the purpose, in relation to the investigation of offences, of ascertaining whether that person has contaminated a crime scene sample.

(2) Any of the following persons may be prescribed for the purposes of this section:

(a) such officers of the Minister who are assigned to perform duties in the State Pathologist’s Office of the Department of Justice and Equality as the Minister considers appropriate to prescribe;

(b) such members of the staff of the Ombudsman Commission as the Minister considers appropriate to prescribe;

(c) such other persons, or class of persons, as the Minister considers appropriate to prescribe who, by reason of the functions or tasks performed or carried out by them, may inadvertently contaminate crime scene samples.

(3) The Minister may, in relation to prescribed persons, prescribe all or any of the following:

(a) the circumstances in which samples shall be, or may be, taken from such persons;

(b) the arrangements to be made for the taking of samples from such persons;

(c) the information to be given to such persons before samples are taken from them;

(d) the circumstances in which the consent of such persons is required before samples are taken from them;

(e) the circumstances in which samples may be re-taken from such persons;

(f) the circumstances in which DNA profiles in respect of such persons generated from the samples taken from them may be—

(i) entered in the elimination (crime scene investigators) index of the DNA Database System,

(ii) entered in the elimination (prescribed persons) index of that System,

(iii) transferred to the elimination (crime scene investigators) index from the elimination (prescribed persons) index of that System or from the former index to the latter index of that System, or

(iv) used, without entering them in the DNA Database System, to ascertain whether such persons have contaminated particular crime scene samples;

(g) subject to section 90 , the circumstances in which samples taken from such persons may be destroyed and the DNA profiles in respect of such persons generated from those samples may be removed from the DNA Database System or destroyed, as may be appropriate.

(4) Regulations made by the Minister under this section may prescribe different circumstances and different arrangements for the taking or re-taking of samples or the destruction of samples or the destruction, or removal from the DNA Database System, of DNA profiles in accordance with this section in respect of different prescribed persons or different classes of such persons.