Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent)
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I think everyone in the committee and the Minister and his officials would agree that this is really important legislation and that we need to reverse the changes made in 2003 and get back to the spirit of the original Labour Party Freedom of Information Act 1997. There is a procedural issue for the committee. The Minister has outlined briefly the reasons he believes the changes introduced in the amendments on Friday are not terribly important. That is fine. Mr. Gavin Sheridan who appeared before the committee is on the record in respect of the amendments on Friday as saying: "If passed, freedom of information is dead." Mr. Gavin Sheridan is not an alarmist. He is an expert in this area. He worked on the Anglo tapes and is a respected journalist.

Mr. Séamus Dooley, National Union of Journalists, said in a press release that came out in the past hour: "The new charges would make the use of FOI unaffordable and would undermine the significant reforms contained in the Act." Ms Jane Suiter, a respected academic, was on radio this morning speaking about it as well. Therefore, as a committee we have a decision to make. We have two conflicting views on very important legislation that we all want to get right and on which we have all spent a great deal of time. As the views of the Minister and respected experts in this area are so different and the language that sensible people are using is so strong, the only sensible thing to do is to pause committee proceedings. We can come back as soon as possible but let us invite the experts back in and understand as a committee the reason they are so strong in their opposition to the amendments. Ideally, the committee can and should give its opinion back to the Minister. Let us do this again in ten days time. I hope the Minister is right. As a committee we have to listen when the NUJ and respected academics use the language they have used in the past few days. As Deputy Creed said we could pause committee proceedings on the basis that we are all present and have an open debate and hear the Minister's position on why he believes the changes are not so big. We could invite in the experts, have a meeting with them in the next few days and proceed again with the Minister within the next two weeks. For the committee, it appears that is the reasonable and responsible thing to do. At the right time, perhaps the Chairman will tell me when it is, that is what I would like to formally propose.