Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This is one of the amendments I am disposed to push to a vote. I genuinely and passionately believe we need to change things in this regard, although I welcome the Minister's statement that he intends to get his political adviser to contact me. I reiterate that I welcome the position he outlined on Committee Stage about looking into the Scottish model of equality-proofing. As I have said in this House previously in my capacity as finance spokesman, since the Government took office, I have seen a marked improvement in the transparency of the information given by the Department of Finance in response to parliamentary questions. I cannot say the same for other Departments because I am not as familiar with them. I remember that when I tabled two very similar questions to two Ministers in the Government, I was able to obtain the information from the Department of Finance but not from the other Department. I will say, however, that there has been a marked improvement. While I agree with the Minister that we can have an overload of information, I do not think information should scare anybody. It is up to people to decide what to do with it. As we move in that direction, we should take the lead and embrace it, rather than having to be dragged there kicking and screaming.

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