Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)

To quote a very fine woman and the then Minister of State, Ms Eithne Fitzgerald, the introduction of freedom of information legislation by the rainbow coalition sought to "turn the culture of the Official Secrets Act on its head". The legislation gave people three new legal rights: to consult official records, to update and correct inaccurate personal information and to be given reasons for public decisions that affect the person in question. In addition, citizens were given for the first time access to Cabinet papers, to be available to the public after five years. This was progressive.

Five years later, Fianna Fáil tore the heart out of the legislation. Transparency and accountability did not sit well with its Ministers. Access to official documents was severely curtailed with the introduction of exorbitant fees that resulted in a halving of freedom of information requests. This was the desired effect. In addition, the period of restrictions on access to Cabinet papers was extended to ten years, supposedly in the interests of progressing peace in the North. If this was the case, there were legislative alternatives to meet this objective, but they were ignored by Fianna Fáil, in much the same way as its Members are ignoring my speech.

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