Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

All right.

I commend Sinn Féin on this motion and I support the sentiments contained in it. This motion was brought forward at short notice as Fianna Fáil, the Green Party and some other cheerleaders who appear to be naively enmeshed in the present Administration - although maladministration might be a truer description - danced a dance earlier on to defend the indefensible actions of a Fine Gael Minister. Sadly, this accurately reflects how these three parties stand on issues of openness, accountability and, most importantly, responsibility. The motion highlights the confirmed failures of the Tánaiste and the Minister for Foreign Affairs to understand or comply with our freedom of information, FOI, laws. This shows that there is a widespread misunderstanding of FOI and, indeed, general data protection regulation, GDPR, legislation within the apparatus of the State. There appears to be an attitude across public bodies in general that FOI requests are unnecessary prying by the public and that they should resist complying genuinely at all costs. They seem to interpret the GDPR primarily as a tool to facilitate the suppression of information. Somehow, the idea of openness and transparency has been lost. This is not the purpose of either. Confident and mature administrators at any level in the State would see these as tools to aid, inform and reaffirm their decision-making processes. However, when leadership is sorely lacking at the highest levels of administration, what hope do we have?

Ultimately, this motion should not be required at all. If we had the government we wanted, there would be no need for FOI. Everything one can access through an FOI request should be available as a right and without a tortuous application process. All decisions, minutes of meetings and considerations of decisions should just be available without the requirement to submit an FOI request. Perhaps I am just being naive. Maybe that is just pie in the sky. If I had any doubts before, the amendment tabled by the Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath, has tonight bolstered my beliefs. It is heavy on statistics and light on substance but that is no surprise to any of us in the Opposition. We are often forced to fall back on FOI requests when we receive substandard replies to parliamentary questions. I am sure that many of my Opposition colleagues will agree that we spend much time seeking information through FOI requests which should be openly available to us to allow us to properly scrutinise the actions of Government.

Again, the Minister's amendment quotes selective figures on full and part disclosures arising from FOI requests, but that does not tell the full story. How many of us have had to appeal a decision and then appeal again to the Information Commissioner? How many of us have been told that records of phone messages do not exist? Can we believe that any of these FOI requests were dealt with properly? From the experience of recent weeks, it certainly seems we cannot. We should look at the lengths the likes of Gavin Sheridan, Ken Foxe and others involved in Right To Know have gone to in order to force transparency on Government and public bodies and at what it has cost them. We should be pursuing a policy of open government. All records that relate to the deliberations and decisions concerning State grants, schemes, services and the administration of public moneys should, as a matter of course, be openly and easily accessible to the public. At the very least, this would save the hours presently spent in dealing with requests and appeals. It would also remove the sense that a miracle and political goodwill are needed for things to happen. When your entire existence relies, as do those of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, on maintaining mystery around service access in order to peddle the impression, whether real or imaginary, that you are able to influence a process, sadly, we will never see real reform. That is the situation. I support the motion.

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