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

I move amendment No. 70:

In page 61, to delete line 10 and substitute the following:“41. (1) The 52 non-disclosure provisions recommended for exclusion in Schedule 3, where the Information Commissioner disagreed with the views of the relevant Departments, shall be deleted from Schedule 3.

(2) A head shall refuse to grant an FOI request if—”.

This is straightforward. The Minister will be aware this committee has considered the issue of 100 non-disclosure secrecy provisions littered through various pieces of legislation, crossing every Department. These are listed in Schedule 3. The committee did not get to complete its work on this issue, but the Information Commissioner attended this committee and she recommended that some 52 of these non-disclosure provisions should no longer exist. I support that and ask that these provisions be removed from the Schedule. I will not list the 52 provisions as we would be here all night.