Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Mr. Fraser. I want to put on record that I think all public moneys should be subject to scrutiny. I do think, however, that the timing of this is very unfortunate, to put a benign interpretation on it. Once the writ was moved, I think we should have delayed this until after the presidential election. So be it. The committee has decided to have this hearing today.

There is quite a substantial difference between the Committee of Public Accounts and the freedom of information provisions in terms of the information that is forthcoming. There may be an expectation that we are going to see a big box of receipts or something here today which, of course, is never the case. There may be an expectation that we are going to be trawling through travel, accommodation and all that kind of stuff. That expectation was never going to be realised. That would never be the case with any organisation that we look at here. We have a difficulty in portraying what the role of the Committee of Public Accounts is when we fall into that kind of situation.

I would like to explore slightly further the line of questioning Deputy Cullinane opened up regarding the Freedom of Information Act. My memory of what happened with that Act is that most of the real focus related to whether freedom of information requests should be paid for as opposed to an emphasis on the various aspects that were excluded from the process, although some attention was paid to those. Was Mr. Fraser asked for his opinion on whether the Office of the President should be excluded from the freedom of information process? I presume all Departments would have been asked for an input. Does Mr. Fraser recall being specifically asked about that and, if so, what was his response?