Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the fact that we are discussing the heads of a Bill to extend freedom of information legislation to areas where it did not apply before this. That is a positive development.

We must, however, take open, transparent and accountable government as far as we possibly can. We have an appalling history of secrecy and cover-up which has had devastating effects on our society. That culture must be completely demolished. It is, unfortunately, still present in many areas. Our overriding objective must be to open up government and remove any impediment to the ordinary citizen getting information about how the money he or she pays in taxes is used to administer the State, its agencies and any institution it funds.

In terms of that broad objective I ask the following questions. First, I do not see any justification for fees. I do not see any justification for exemptions. One might say this is a very radical position. There may be exceptions but they should be framed in the legislation precisely as exceptions. I ask the Minister to respond to the following point. The rule should be free and open access to all information for all public bodies, semi-State bodies and all bodies that receive substantial funding. If any of those bodies wants to make a case for information to be withheld in particular instances it should have to make that case. The case can then be subject to appeal. We start with giving information. That should be the rule. If a body wants to say information is, for example, particularly commercially sensitive and its publication would be particularly damaging to the interest of a semi-State body it should have to say that and make that case.

Currently, commercial sensitivity is a catch-all term used to block citizens from getting information about things they have a right to know about. I am at my wits' end trying to get information about Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company. I cannot accept that the inability to get information about that entity can be justified on the basis of so-called commercial sensitivity. There are huge questions about how public contracts are given out. Often, one cannot get this information because of commercial sensitivity. The secrecy of public private partnerships is an outrage. Significant amounts of money are being put into projects and because we are in a partnership with some private entity all information is blocked out because it is commercially sensitive. That has to stop. The public body in question, or the private body with which it is working in conjunction, should have to explain to us why they are not giving the information, or be legally enforced to give it.

Deputy McDonald has already referred to the issue of vexatious requests. We could work on a formula whereby a particular body could make the case that some requests, which will be a tiny minority, are vexatious. That could be subject to a review process. If we include exemptions or fees in the legislation they will become a more general blocker that can be used to inhibit ordinary citizens who have legitimate questions from making reasonable requests.

On the question of what is substantial and significant State funding, percentages and so on, I am particularly concerned about the issue of the banks. Percentages will not work there because we put a lot of money up-front into the banks. I want the legislation to put us in a position where we can question the Bank of Ireland, which got billions, or any of the banks that got large amounts of public money in detail about what is going on, what their decision making processes are and so on. We need to think about that.

We need to open the area of the asylum process, direct provision and deportations. It is a human rights issue.