Mr. Gerry Curran:

I thank the Chairman and the committee for this opportunity to share the views of our trade union on the legislation. The delegation represents trade union views and the experience of our members in broadcasting and publishing newspapers. I will give an overview of the freedom of information legislation and Mr. Dooley will go into more detail.

It is the view of the NUJ that for freedom of information to work, every society and public body needs to make a decision to overcome a legacy and ethos of secrecy. We inherited this legacy with a very organised Civil Service from the British authorities on our independence. The "do not tell, do not reveal and obfuscate" ethos is in the DNA of official Ireland. Perhaps it goes back to the playing of hide-and-seek with the body of Richard III, but the idea of telling, openly revealing and being forthright is not one we inherited or created in our society.

A previous review of the legislation by senior officials and the Minister was a little self-serving, to put it bluntly, and it brought us back to many decades prior to the 1997 Act. An example of this is that many bodies do not publish online information they have already released under the freedom of information legislation, and if another journalist or member of the public seeks the same information they are sometimes told to submit a freedom of information request for it, even though the information has already been gathered and is already in the public domain.

We welcome the extension of the list of bodies to be included in the Bill, but we think it regrettable that commercial semi-State bodies are excluded.

We wonder about the definition of environmental issues under the access to information on the environment, AIE, regulations and whether it needs to be examined further. We are slightly concerned about the strong exclusions regarding NAMA and the National Treasury Management Agency, NTMA. They need particular scrutiny, as they literally have what is left of the family silver and the management of our considerable national mortgage in their care. We question whether giving the Minister sole power over future inclusions of public bodies is democratic.

The experience that we will share with the committee is that, despite freedom of information being the law, there is a general stonewalling of journalists' requests through unhelpful explanations of what records are held, delays in responses and appeals, creative interpretation of excuses and exclusions, and costs, particularly to new and freelance journalists.

This is the general overview of our union's position on freedom of information, FOI, and what these amendments may offer. I ask Mr. Dooley to provide a more detailed input.