Ms Emma O'Kelly:

The presumption should be one of openness. I agree that if a substantial amount of material was published in the first instance, there would not be any need for freedom of information requests. I will give an example I was discussing before coming to this meeting. Several years ago, I submitted a request to the Department of Education and Skills seeking information on what was being taught in religion class in certain schools in west Dublin. One would expect that it would be simple to find the information I was seeking as it was documentation on the design of the curriculum. However, it took me almost two and a half years to obtain it as my requests were refused at every stage. Interestingly, I was initially informed by the Department that I would need to submit freedom of information requests to the vocational education committees to obtain the information I sought because they were running the schools in question. However, as I knew the VECs were not subject to freedom of information legislation, I wondered if the person who gave me this direction - it may not have been the same person to whom I spoke - also knew that I would not be able to obtain the information by contacting the vocational education committees because legislation had not been passed and the Minister was still the patron. I persisted but the information was refused and refused again on appeal. I took a case to the Ombudsman and eventually received the information solely because I made it known to the Department that I planned to do a story on the fact that I could not get it. At that point, after almost two and a half years of trying, I was given the information.

Exemption seems to be the rule. Seeking information is almost like navigating a maze. One must anticipate the exemptions that will put in place and try to figure out a way around them. We would like this culture to change. Whereas the assumption should be that one will be given the information one seeks, at the moment the opposite is the case.