Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 10 January 2013

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform

Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform

3:00 pm

Photo of Brendan HowlinBrendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

With regard to the success rate of appeals, I do not have the data but I will see if I can find it and send it to the Deputy. I intervened to answer the other part of the question about tweaking the appeals process to allow more appeals to succeed. We set out the criteria and, as long as the application meets the criteria, the appeal should succeed. If it does not, the appeal should not succeed.

I do not have a fixed view of what constitutes a substantial public contribution to bring a voluntary or other group within the remit of the freedom of information legislation. I am interested in the view of the committee on it and if it may be something the committee could debate. Should 50%, greater than 50% or 80% of an organisation's funding come from the public purse before the organisation comes within the remit of freedom of information? Should it be calculated over a period of time? If a sports club receives a substantial capital grant, I am not minded that it could be suddenly subject to freedom of information legislation. The natural course of events means that when a significant portion of an organisation's running costs, whatever proportion we determine, comes from the public purse, the organisation should be subject to freedom of information legislation.

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