Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the committee for facilitating this meeting. The President of the European Commission and all European Commissioners are in town and we spent the morning having very constructive dialogue, not only on our Presidency agenda but on matters which are very important to the country, and I greatly appreciate the Chairman facilitating my late arrival. We will take the speech as read.

The Bill is one of a suite of reform measures that the Government is determined to introduce to change how public business is done, and the committee has already debated some of them. The Freedom of Information Act is bedrock legislation which underpins public access to the way the people's business is done. The aspects I will deal with are the reforms I seek, why they are required and how we will bring them about.

I was a member of the Government that introduced the original Freedom of Information Act and I remember the very detailed debate when the then Minister for these matters, Eithne Fitzgerald, steered the Bill through the Oireachtas. Significant restrictions have been imposed on this ground-breaking legislation, primarily by an amending Act introduced in 2003. The objective I have set out in the draft heads is to reverse the restrictions put in place in 2003 and to extend the Act to the widest possible definition of public bodies and also to non-public bodies significantly funded from the public purse. Members will recall the approach we took in dealing with the remit of the Ombudsman was that not only public bodies qua public bodies should be subject to oversight but also those substantially funded from the public purse.

Severe restrictions were placed by the amending legislation to access to information as set out in the original Act. Significant high-profile bodies that exercise very important public functions have been excluded from the Act and there is a need to address the gap that was created. Deputy Donnelly, who is sitting across from me, and others have an interest in the financial institutions, the Garda Síochána, refugee and asylum agencies and a number of qualified judicial and regulatory bodies which will now be brought under the remit of the freedom of information legislation.

The original Act has been in place for 15 years and in any event it is timely to review its functioning and consolidate and simplify it, based not only on what we have learned from how it has worked in this jurisdiction but on an examination of best international practice. We have taken advice on this from the Information Commissioner, which we have also incorporated in the reforms laid before the committee.

The reforms seek to ensure greater access to official information, which is fundamental to the operation of any democratic institution. They also seek to create genuine openness and transparency. I know people often tire of this phrase, but it is important to how the Government and public bodies do their business. The reforms also seek to ensure Ireland's freedom of information regime is restored to the top tier of legal frameworks internationally for facilitating access to information, and to ensure the culture and practice of secrecy in public bodies is set aside for good and replaced with a basic legal presumption that the public has a right to know.

I am happy to answer any particular questions committee members may have.