Mr. Ken Foxe:

To my mind there should be automatic inclusion of all public and State bodies under FOI legislation. As journalists, we are familiar with the exemptions and exceptions in place governing commercial sensitivity, security matters etc. We deal with them every day and they are more than enough to protect semi-State public bodies. Everybody should be automatically included and there should be no governing authority; when a new agency is set up, it should automatically come under freedom of information legislation, with exemptions used to deal with issues concerning commercial sensitivity and so on.