Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I, too, congratulate Mr. Deering on his nomination for the position. I heard and read his opening statement with real interest because I am interested in this subject myself.

Mr. Deering said that "public services are not always as good as they could or should be ... and information is not always furnished". Does he think that is due to an internal culture or is it due to a lack of information in respect of the requirements?

We have heard from the Minister and from what Mr. Deering has said here himself that we need to reduce the need for FOI requests. We have heard about a life after FOI and that things should be made available. That is what we all want but we are very from that. Anybody who has lodged an FOI request will know how frustrating it is to have half the information is redacted. We have also seen that senior people are not aware of their FOI obligations. Indeed, there is an FOI review under way and the whole process was announced in the summer, but we saw that senior members of the Government were not even aware the review was happening until it became a news issue. I am quite concerned about the level of information and knowledge people have about FOI.

In terms of public bodies, does Mr. Deering think this is as a result of a culture? Is culture one aspect? Does he think it is because there is a lack of information? Mr. Deering made the fair point that some people see FOI requests as an administrative burden. Could that view be linked to the culture? How does he see us having a life beyond FOI? I ask because it is often mentioned in the debate that you cannot compete with that because, of course, that is the dream everybody wants, but we are nowhere near that at the moment. How does he see that happening?