Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As the Taoiseach has just reminded us, the programme for Government contains commitments to restore the Freedom of Information Act to what it was before it was restricted. I presume that was a genuine effort by those who made up the Government to correct what they saw as something which was wrong. They also committed to extend the remit of the Freedom of Information Act to other public bodies, including the administrative side of the Garda Síochána, and to extend freedom of information in the Ombudsman Act to cover all statutory bodies and all bodies significantly funded from the public purse. All of that is good.

I sometimes sit here in stupefaction listening to the exchanges between the Taoiseach and the leader of Fianna Fáil that "the culture has to change" and so on. I will tell the Taoiseach of my own experience, of which I can give numerous examples. One example arose today, when I asked the criteria for fast-tracking decisions regarding necessary upgrades in the hospitals in Wexford, Carlow and Kilkenny ahead of other necessary upgrades in other hospitals. I am no wiser as to the criteria that was used. The Taoiseach went off on a solo run around Sinn Féin not wanting to see Wexford people being treated the way they should be treated, as opposed to being treated out of a pharmacy or a Portakabin, and so on. Similarly, in terms of the decisions taken around primary care centres, which, as we all know, led to the resignation of a Minister of State, our spokesperson on health - the Taoiseach knows him quite well and he is very good at his job - asked numerous questions, including in freedom of information requests. Again, we did not get any scale or clarity on any of that.

I am trying to convince the Taoiseach to see this in the way he used to see it when he was on this side of the House. I was not here, of course, but it appears to me it has not changed very much. Commitments about transparency, accountability, openness and changing the way things once were come to nothing. With regard to this entire issue, when we stand up here and ask questions in regard to the use of public funds, can we not simply get straight answers, as the Taoiseach promised to give us?

See this speech in context