Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

That said, and following on from some of the contributions from Deputy Sean Fleming, we all recognise that there is a cultural resistance to varying degrees around the sharing of information. To address that aspect the Minister indicated where data is to be freely shared. This should at some point, at least in theory, render FOI legislation, if not redundant, certainly less critical in the architecture. We are not yet there and we have some way to go.

I appreciate what the Minister said in terms of the code of practice. He acknowledged the need to have oversight, a statistical analysis, etc. We are on the same wavelength on that.

When I was on my feet, I should have spoken on amendments Nos. 47 and 48 - I only referred to amendment No. 13 - but I do so now. The idea of this data manager and the idea of making it compulsory that this information be submitted to the data manager is to a large extent to intervene legislatively in a way that is mandatory to break and reshape that culture of resistance wherever it exists.

I still wish to press my amendments. I understand that amendment No. 13 will be the critical one in the group because the other two flow from it. I take the view that it is necessary to have it stated in legislation, to have this data manager in place and to have statutory obligations associated with the submission of information on an annual basis to that manager. At this point, it is a necessary measure. Undoubtedly, I hope that this kind of provision would be unnecessary at a future point but, as I stated, we are not at that point just yet.

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