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

I put it to the Taoiseach that the strategy of the Government since it came into office has been the antithesis of everything it said before the election, in terms of transparency and the provision of information in a timely manner to Deputies and the public at large. We have repeatedly had to use the freedom of information process to garner information on a whole range of Government decisions.

That information could easily have been provided in response to parliamentary questions, but the Government chose not to do so. On many occasions I have asked the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste during Leaders' Questions whether they will publish documentation on a particular issue and furnish information to Members of the House, but the answer has invariably been "No."

I would like to mention a range of issues in respect of which it took us nearly one year to find out what was really going on behind the scenes. I refer to what happened when we asked for details of the advice Ministers received before Government decisions were taken on a range of issues. In the case of the primary care centre debacle, for example, it is worth reflecting on the fact that we would not have found out the truth about the decisions made by the Minister for Health, Deputy James Reilly, in the Department of Health if freedom of information requests had not been made by Members of this House and journalists. That revealed the chaotic manner in which the Minister, at the eleventh hour, had added primary care centres in his constituency without any reference to the advice of departmental officials. It took us nearly nine months to gain access to the advice received by the Minister for Finance before the Government decided to raid pension funds to secure €500 million for its so-called "jobs initiative". We found out that the Minister for Social Protection and others had advised against the decision to raid the pensions of ordinary people. We could not get any information on the pros and cons of that decision until we used the freedom of information mechanisms to do so.

In the light of the horsemeat saga and debacle of the last couple of weeks, I have asked for correspondence between the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, the Department of Health and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to be published and furnished. The drip-drip nature of the process means we have not yet received that documentation and there is no transparency. The same applies to the technical paper on the bank debt that the Taoiseach told me 18 months ago was being negotiated with the troika. I do not know whether that paper is available. When I asked the Taoiseach previously to state whether it was, he smiled at me and indicated that it really was not. We sought information on these issues and the Taoiseach's discussions with the President of the European Council, Mr. Van Rompuy, through the freedom of information process, but again we were denied it. The same happened in the case of the discussions on corporation tax.

In many instances, when we have submitted freedom of information requests on claims made by the Taoiseach about certain matters and issues, in order to allow us to check the evidence for these claims, the Department of the Taoiseach has fought the release of such information and we have not received it all. I will ask a basic question about the reform of the freedom of information legislation which, apparently, is under way. We have been waiting for it for quite some time. In the light of the clampdown on the release of meaningful information to Members, can the Taoiseach give a clear instruction to his Ministers to be accountable to the House? He should demand that they provide total and comprehensive information on issues in response to requests made by Members and spokespeople, particularly through the parliamentary questions process. The degree to which it has tightened up on information, by using the freedom of information facility as a way of preventing people from getting at the truth, is a severe indictment of the Government which seems to hope that by forestalling the release of information, the issue of concern will have passed by and will no longer be the dominant centre-stage issue by the time the truth gets out. A change of culture on the part of the Taoiseach and his Ministers, whereby they provide information for us in a much more timely manner, should be a fundamental part of any reform of the freedom of information regime.

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