Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

One of the most obvious developments since the Taoiseach has taken up office is how often he makes claims for which he will not provide any backup. More than ever before, the Opposition and the media must rely on the Freedom of Information Act to check his claims and to seek information which should be in the public domain. In recent times the Taoiseach's Department has been invoking every legal route possible to prevent access to information. When I asked for details of the supposed attack on corporation tax, for example, the Taoiseach refused to release the information, claiming a diplomatic exemption.

Today I wish to ask him about a far more serious issue, namely his casting of a slur on his predecessor. In both this House and the Seanad, the Taoiseach repeatedly claimed that he had looked for files about the bank guarantee and how it came about but could not even find a single piece of paper on it. He suggested that perhaps the file was lost behind a radiator. Deputy Paul Kehoe chipped in with the suggestion that perhaps the file had been destroyed. Under a freedom of information request, the Taoiseach was forced to admit that there are actually 17 files in his Department, on top of a further 48 in the Department of Finance. Does the Taoiseach now have the basic decency to withdraw his false attack or will he continue to put partisan attacks ahead of everything?

I remind the Taoiseach that even though both he and the Tánaiste explicitly said, almost three weeks ago, that all information relating to the primary care centres should be released, we are still waiting for that documentation under a freedom of information request. Indeed, towards the end of last week, we received a reply to the effect that the Department wants an extension of a further four weeks before it will give us the documentation requested. This is not open practice. I do not know how the Taoiseach can be satisfied with the operation of the freedom of information procedures when an answer on an issue of such topicality, that has grabbed the imagination of the public for the last five or six weeks, is still not forthcoming. The Government is hiding behind the Freedom of Information Act and using it as a shield to prevent the release of information. The provisions of that Act are all we have left in terms of trying to find out the rationale behind the selection of additional primary care centre sites.

The programme for Government promised additional legislation but it appears that the Government is quite content to use the freedom of information process and to tell Deputies and Senators to utilise the provisions of that Act to obtain information rather than pre-empting such requests and providing information in the House. The Government should be trying to ensure that key questions about important topics raised by parliamentarians are not long-fingered or delayed for four weeks or more, in the hope that by the time the information is eventually released, interest will have moved on to some other issue. I can instance a whole range of issues, from the pension levy onwards, where it has taken months to get basic information as to why decisions were taken. In no way could the Taoiseach be satisfied with the operation of the Act, from an objective standpoint. Perhaps he could be satisfied with it from a narrow, political perspective in terms of just wishing to obfuscate and prevent the release of information.

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