Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will not make any charge against any person by name, but EirGrid must be brought under the Freedom of Information Act. It adds to the arrogance of that organisation. How much or little arrogance is a matter for people to judge; I will not comment on that. My amendment deletes line 30. I want Coillte Teoranta excluded as an exempted body for similar reasons. I will not go into the specifics. Regarding line 3, on the Food Safety Promotion Board, people are entitled to know about when and where these organisations become aware of food safety matters, so that organisation should not be exempt.

I am also speaking on amendment No. 93, which proposes to delete line 7 on page 76. We are back to my friend Irish Water. This was discussed earlier, but the provision copperfastens Irish Water as an exempt agency and it should not be. We had a good discussion with the Minister and he told us he was minded to consider not exempting Irish Water. He made a clear distinction and has drawn a good parallel here. I accept the logic whereby the commercial semi-State bodies that are out there competing should not have to be at a disadvantage. However, the Minister said Iarnród Éireann would be included because, although it is a big State agency, nobody is in competition with it so there is no commercial disadvantage to its being included. There are several provisions in the legislation to protect commercially sensitive matters. The same applies to Irish Water as Iarnród Éireann. It is a large organisation carrying out Government policy on behalf of the State and there is no commercial sensitivity involved.