Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Like the Chairman, the first thing I want to do is to congratulate Mr. Deering on his nomination to these important roles. I wish him every success in the years ahead. I also commend the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Michael McGrath, on ensuring Mr. Deering was nominated on foot of an open recruitment process. Mr. Deering's position is greatly strengthened in the political and public realms because he comes before both having been selected as a result of an independent, transparent and objective process.

I agree with Mr. Deering who said at the outset of his comments, and I commend him on it, that we are lucky in this country because we have a good public service. We have excellent services that are provided but they can always be improved. There are areas within the public service that need to be improved. I am conscious and appreciate that he recognises his role is to try to assist the public by improving the quality of information and services provided by the public service.

I will ask Mr. Deering some questions in respect of what he stated in his opening statement. He made some comments that I thought interesting and of use to the political realm. In his report, he mentioned he believes that much of the information currently obtained using freedom of information and access to environmental information should be made available as a matter of course. That would mean individuals would not have to select documents they think exist but that the documents would be, in general, available. It may be the case, in fact, that certain documents would be withheld and they are the ones that would be subject to application. I ask Mr. Deering to elaborate on that point. How does he think it could operate?

What improvements would that result in?