Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 13 November 2013

Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Select Sub-Committee on Public Expenditure and Reform

Freedom of Information Bill 2013: Committee Stage (Resumed)

7:25 pm

Photo of Brendan HowlinBrendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I understand what the Deputy is saying. Section 40(2) lists a range of records to which subsection (1) applies in addition to the class of records which could be protected under the original Act. This is because we are extending the scope of this Act to the NTMA group of companies. We have had discussions with those who will be affected and they have serious concerns regarding the impact of their discussions on advising and managing PPP projects and others.

I assure the Deputy that the section does not restrict access to records automatically, but only in the circumstances where the grounds set out in section 40(1) apply. Information may be released where the public interest would, on balance, be better served by granting rather than by refusing the request. It is a balance between expanding the scope of the FOI legislation to this new range of companies, which had been preserved in purity from FOI requirements up to now, and doing it in a way consistent with not compromising the important State work they do. We are inserting a caveat that they are not automatically exempt unless they prove that to release the information would impact on the way determined in section 40(1).

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