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

I welcome Anti-Deportation Ireland. I thank the committee for agreeing to see the witnesses and I thank them for making the request to come here. I know their concerns are much broader than the issue of freedom of information. Hopefully, one thing that will come out of this first engagement with the Oireachtas is that they might go on and try to be heard by other committees dealing with some of the other aspects of the situation they are in. Our particular job is to identify how we can mend the draft legislation in such a way as to assist and shine a light on the refugee and asylum process, which the witnesses have described as a process that really needs to be looked at and be much more transparent. However, what we need to know is what we have to do to this legislation to achieve that end for them. It is absolutely clear to me - and, I suspect to most of the committee members - that this needs to be done.

My view is that there is a total veil of secrecy over this process because it essentially keeps those concerned away from the rest of the community and facilitates deportations in the dead of night. I believe, although I could be wrong, that it is a systematic policy and that is why it is difficult to get the information. I suspect that is what the witnesses know to be the case. What we need is the information and to get the truth - the objective facts - out there about the processes so that society as a whole, the Oireachtas and everybody else can see it. What the Chairman was trying to get at and what we need to get at are what specific provisions or amendments we need to put into this Bill in order to ensure those concerned, the media and anybody who wants it can get free access to information about this.

Is it the case that the witnesses believe there needs to be a specific statement in the Bill to clarify the full application of freedom of information to all of these processes? Do they believe it is not stated clearly enough and that because it is not clearly stated or because there are exemptions or limitations on the information currently, it is allowing this veil of secrecy to continue? Listening to what was said, what seems to be necessary is a clear statement at the outset of the Bill or somewhere else explicitly setting out that full information on all the processes relating to these particular agencies must be fully subject to freedom of information provisions.