James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The programme for Government refers to partnership and democracy and engagement across key groups such as the public, media and other stakeholders. It sets out such lofty goals as greater accountability, reform of freedom of information legislation and more open governance. I raised previously the practice of Government agencies and Departments of corresponding in hard copy rather than in electronic format. I suggest this may be a form of obfuscation at times.

I refer to a recent development when ten years' of video footage of Oireachtas debates disappeared from the Oireachtas website. Apparently, a policy decision was made to take down the footage and various technical reasons, which did not stack up, were advanced for doing so. Journalists were told that to access this material in future, they would have to submit a written request and wait for some weeks to be furnished with it. This caused a justifiable storm on social media, which I understand led to the decision being reversed in the past 24 hours. This was not an auspicious start for open and transparent government. Was this incident an aberration or the start of a pattern? Will the Taoiseach give a commitment to provide timely, relevant, accurate and digitally accessible information on the proceedings of the House?

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