Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 3, between lines 10 and 11, to insert the following:“ “Information Commissioner” means the Office of the Information Commissioner as outlined in section 43 of the Freedom of Information Act 2014;”.

We obviously agree with the thrust of the Bill and acknowledge that more archives are going to come into the public domain.

The worry we have as a party is that the Bill as it stands could allow for a Minister in the future to make decisions on the basis of the Bill which might be political. What we are simply trying to do with these amendments is depoliticise those decisions. All of us have loyalties to our own political parties and objectives and often archives can shine a light on actions of colleagues or foes. For a Minister to have such a clear power to determine whether archives will be made available etc. creates a difficulty. That is the reason these amendments have been tabled.

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