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

It has to be practical and cannot snarl up the work of public administration. The Minister has made that point and it is legitimate. However, these exemptions are cast, as Deputy Fleming said, very broadly. Given that the Minister has the power to accept communications in the public interest and has brought forward a provision in respect of simple communications to establish matters of fact, interdepartmental or inter-public official lobbying should not be excluded from transparency and scrutiny. The objective of all Stages of this legislative process is to make the Bill operable and, as the Minister said, as practical, effective and comprehensive as possible. Therefore, I have tabled these amendments and others. There are other very sweeping exemptions, and it is a mistake to cast them so broadly in the Bill.

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