Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Workers and Unemployed Action Group) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate. The Bill is also welcome, although I have concerns about a number of provisions but I hope that during its passage through the House they will be addressed and rectified. The purpose of the legislation is to reverse a number of the provisions in the restrictive 2003 Act, which dramatically changed elements of the original 1997 Act, and that is welcome.

FOI provisions will be extended to other public bodies but there are exemptions, with which I do not agree. The legislation has been welcomed cautiously by many commentators, including the former Ombudsman and Information Commissioner , Emily O’Reilly. She said it is positive for transparency but that the changes introduced in the Bill would only become clear when information was sought under the new regime. That is the critical question. Will there be a culture change? Will openness and transparency be embraced by officialdom and the various agencies covered by the Bill? When it comes to implementing the Bill, will we have that openness and transparency to which the public is obviously entitled?

The extension of the remit of freedom of information raises resource issues. The addition of further bodies will mean the Office of the Information Commissioner will come under additional pressure. It is vital that resources be made available to ensure the legislation is operated in a positive and timely fashion.

The principle of freedom of information encompasses public scrutiny of decisions made by public bodies, allowing for greater appreciation of the issues involved in public decisions and stronger public ownership and acceptance of decisions made. Those affected by decisions of public bodies should have the right to know the criteria used in making the decisions. Every individual should have the right to know what information is held in Government records about him or her, subject to certain exemptions, to have inaccurate personal material on file corrected and to obtain the reasons for a decision that affects them personally. Citizens, as stakeholders in public bodies, should have the right to examine and review the deliberations and processes of public bodies. We need a properly functioning system whereby the public has a right to know and whereby people have easy access to information and to the system by which it can be made available to them. As the previous Information Commissioner stated, the key test is not what is written down on the page or in the Act when passed, but how the provisions of the Bill will operate in practice on the ground.

One of the problems with the Bill relates to fees, which are a deterrent to the provisions of the Bill being widely available to the public. The issue has been discussed by various committees of this House and in other countries, as well as by professional individuals. Dr. Nat O'Connor of TASC, in a discussion paper entitled An Economic Argument for Stronger Freedom of Information Laws in Ireland, estimated that freedom of information costs in 2009 amounted to just 0.012% of total Government spending. He stated:

The argument that FOI is expensive is disingenuous. It seeks to reduce public administration to a simple bookkeeping exercise of balancing direct annual costs against revenue. In this simplistic account, the administrative cost of FOI is greater than the costs recovered through the fees regime. However, any serious cost-benefit analysis of FOI must include the estimated savings that are generated through preventing errors and wrong-doing. Therefore, we must include cost savings to the State which were largely brought about through information revealed by FOI requests.

At one extreme, the tribunals and claims against the State have shown that prevention is not just better than cure; it is also much cheaper than the costs of investigations and compensation.

Other eminent individuals have come down on the side of not having fees, including in recent examinations of the issue in the UK. I hope the Minister will consider withdrawing the proposed fees in the legislation.

I am concerned about exemptions, particularly of the Garda Síochána, other than administrative elements, and the widespread exemptions for NAMA and commercial semi-state bodies such as Irish Water. NAMA has been mentioned by a number of speakers across the political divide. Unfortunately, almost all documents of interest possessed by NAMA on the funds of companies and other entities in which NAMA has invested or could potentially invest are excluded. That is a difficult area and it should not be exempt. NAMA should be fully accessible to freedom of information requests. Issues have arisen in terms of NAMA's activity, the sale of property, dealings with developers, and staff of NAMA resigning, transferring and being re-employed by development companies. The Garda Síochána should come fully under the remit of FOI legislation. There is no good reason for excluding any portion of An Garda Síochána. That is also the case for semi-state agencies, including Irish Water. The public has a right to know what is going on in public and semi-state companies.

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