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

I will also be brief and will cut to the chase as Members discussed this issue at length on Committee Stage. I am opposed to the charging of any fees in respect of freedom of information, FOI, requests. On Committee Stage, it was established that the charging of fees is not about cost recovery and the report the Minister compiled, which I acknowledge, makes that point again. The Minister is not charging to cover the costs as that would not be possible and nor - I imagine - would it be desirable in the Minister's mind. The question then arises as to why charge and what is the effect of charging. Members are aware that when charges and fees are levied at whatever point, it acts as a disincentive for people to make freedom of information requests. I acknowledge that from the Minister's perspective, he has changed radically the method by which he proposes to charge but, none the less, the regime he describes contains charges. This is entirely the wrong direction to take and the correct position is not to charge either an upfront fee or a search or retrieval fee. I revert to an earlier part of today's debate when the Minister referred to open data and to a system whereby datasets and a culture in which data are freely and routinely made available. I agree it is necessary to get to that point and when that point is reached, it will render the freedom of information legislation, if not redundant, then certainly not the key piece of legislative architecture in this regime.

There is a reluctance within the system to share or make available information and the objective of everything Members must do is to ease the passage of information release. I have a principled opposition to the charging of fees, of which the Minister is aware as we debated this point long and hard on Committee Stage. The Minister has come a substantial way, in his own terms, by abolishing the €15 fee and so on. I ask him to go a little bit further and instead of inserting a lengthy amendment, to simply dispense with the notion of fees entirely. While I could go on, the Minister will be relieved that I will not do so this time. I could go through the details of my concerns on the amendment as drafted but the bottom line is that I do not believe in charging fees for freedom of information requests either upfront or through search and retrieval fees.

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