Brendan Ryan (Labour)

The fundamental issue that arises is the determination to ensure that some people, other than the Minister who has no inhibitions about it, would be able to express themselves freely without the fear that someone might find out what they are thinking.

In the next six weeks I will correct exams and projects in which I will have to make decisions and serious judgments which will affect people's futures. Some of them will arguably be subjective because there will be no objective criteria. All will determine whether a young person receives a pass or honours degree or, God forbid, fails the exam. Once the exam results are issued, every piece of documentation I have used to make a judgment about a young person will be available to him or her under the Freedom of Information Act. That is quite right.

How could it be that something that I find difficult but right is so wrong and difficult for Government that it wants to take that same right away when it applies to it? Our amendment is about stating the purpose of the Bill, namely, protecting Government from the type of scrutiny that is good for both Government and society and is no problem for capable Ministers, such as the Minister for Finance who is more than capable of making up his own mind about many matters, although he is usually wrong, and does not need bureaucratic or legal protections to conceal his capacity for making up his mind and differing from others. Therefore, our amendment essentially says that this is not a freedom of information Bill but a suppression of information Bill and should be so called politically speaking.