Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

The Freedom of Information Act 1997 applies to the Department of the Taoiseach in the same way that it applies to every other Department. It was introduced as a means of bringing transparency and accountability to governance. Some time ago, the Chairman of the Committee of Public Accounts, Deputy Allen, said that although the Freedom of Information Act provides for information to be given to individual private citizens, legal difficulties arise when the same information is sought by a body like the Committee of Public Accounts. I am sure the Taoiseach, as a former Minister for Finance, would not be pleased with such a situation. The intent of the Freedom of Information Act was to allow citizens and anyone else to access information about the way the Government is run. We support that. Surely there is something wrong when the HSE says it might encounter legal problems if it provides to the Committee of Public Accounts information that it can provide to John Citizen on the street. There seems to be something wrong there. I know it is not directly related to the issue of costs, or the number of requests that are made to the Department of the Taoiseach. In certain circumstances, these problems with requests could arise in that Department as well. Does the Taoiseach not think we should examine the system and free it up so it operates in the manner that was originally intended?

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