Mr. Carl O'Brien:

On the issue of incentivising and perhaps achieving a faster turnaround for freedom of information requests, there are a couple of practical ways this could be done. For example, on the issue of delays, if a freedom of information request is not processed within the legislative time limit, perhaps the information then should be made available automatically to the requestor. This would provide a real incentive to the decision-makers to process it. In addition, as the National Newspapers of Ireland, NNI, submission noted, making available a lot of this information as a matter of course would preclude the need for freedom of information requests in the first place. It would be going to the spirit of more open governance that routine basic information should be provided as a matter of course. On the issue of fees and incentivising the correct decision-making in this regard, appeal fees should be refunded if it is found that the material sought was found to have been in the public interest because, at present, there is no incentive for a decision-maker to get the decision right. One can keep redacting and refusing information and ultimately appealing it but no matter how many times this is done, there is no incentive on the decision-maker to get that right. In addition, training will be absolutely crucial in changing this cultural shift and incentivising freedom of information officers to make decisions that genuinely are in the public interest.

This cultural issue and such training will be crucial because as journalists, we come up against barriers in a very practical way on a daily basis. A big issue with the 2003 amendment to the Act is that not only was it an attempt to shut down the operation of large aspects of the freedom of information legislation, but it also led to this culture of redaction and rejection of information. I will give a couple of practical examples. On the issue of delays, for example, I made a freedom of information request to the HSE regarding the treatment of separated children seeking asylum. These were particularly vulnerable children who were in unregulated hostels, were disappearing and about the welfare of whom there were major concerns. That freedom of information request took three and a half years to be processed by the HSE. The information was only released after the Government had actually changed the practice and shut down such hostels. Consequently, one gets the sense that in many cases, the information was being delayed until they had political cover for the decision they had made. Similarly on excessive fees, as Ms Dearbhail McDonald mentioned, there is a huge disparity, on a day-to-day basis, in the fees being quoted for the same types of documents. I refer, for example, to briefing material prepared for Ministers or Secretaries General. Sometimes it is the basic €15 fee while at other times, it is hundreds of euro. One gets the feeling a lot of the time that such excessive fees are being quoted to dissuade people from seeking information.

In addition, another cultural approach to the decision-making is the blanket refusal or sometimes cynical use of part of the legislation to reject records, such as the use of deliberative processes or commercial sensitivity. I have to hand a document which was released on foot of a freedom of information request relating to briefing material for the Minister for Finance in respect of the 2009 budget. The budget in question involved taking between €1.5 billion and €2 billion out of public spending and, consequently, these were issues that are relevant to every man, woman and child in the State. A seven-page document was released to me that set out the spending options put before the Minister. However, as members can see, this is a seven-page document in which every single page has been blacked out and only minimal information regarding headings has been retained. Such a cynical approach to releasing information really undermines the spirit of the Act. Moreover, this example related to a budget that had been announced, to Estimates that had been published and for which the Finance Bill had been enacted. In real terms, there was no reason to reject the release of the information but yet all this information was denied on the grounds of deliberative processes. Such blanket use of deliberative processes is a real issue because matters are under permanent consideration in the eyes of decision-makers. Consequently, this often undermines the practical application of the Act and is where going back to training for staff is crucial in terms of fulfilling the spirit of the Act and ensuring we maximise the potential of this legislation.