Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputies Farrell and Clarke for bringing this Bill forward. Freedom of information is extremely important in terms of openness, transparency and, most important, accountability. I listened to the Minister of State's reply and I cannot understand his opposition to the Bill or his amendment, or why the Government will be kicking this down the road for another nine months. As has been said, this Bill will broaden the current remit of FOI by requiring the Minister to conduct an annual review of public bodies. I do not see a problem with that. It would allow the Minister to bring public bodies that are only partially covered by FOI more fully under the Act. Again, what is the problem there? Why would we need to wait nine months before that is enacted? It could easily be worked on now. Further, the Bill would increase accountability by allowing the Office of the Information Commissioner to refer complaints to SIPO for investigation, where bodies have been found to have intentionally or recklessly failed to fulfil their obligations in a material respect under the Act.

The Minister of State claims that SIPO does not have the powers for this but he is ignoring the fact that SIPO itself has been calling for greater powers. This is a constant kicking down the road. This organisation has been asking for extra powers for a very long time and the Government is saying we should just keep kicking it down the road so we do not get accountability. This Bill would help ensure that public bodies act consistently and appropriately when fulfilling their FOI duties. It would ensure there is no gap in FOI coverage when a company or other body becomes a public body. For what reason was that introduced in the first place?

I find it strange that a public body would be given six months to allow it to do whatever it wanted and it was not accountable to anybody.

When I was researching this topic, I looked at one of the reports. One of the things which really struck me was the decision to abolish the fee for making FOI requests. Sometimes, something strikes home. In this case, I wondered why we were charging people for information. What is the possible reason that we would have a charge for people seeking their own information, or other information that should be in the public domain? It is a strange practice if we are talking about openness, transparency and accountability. This aspect must be addressed.

There was a 67% increase in usage levels over 2014. There were 34,000 requests when the fee was abolished. This shows that people are very interested and are demanding more openness and transparency. We have frequently seen how a simple FOI can expose corruption and protect whistleblowers. Those following journalists and other people who use the FOI legislation regularly will see that vast tracts of information are missing or page upon page are redacted and blacked out. Occasionally, it will be possible only to get the page number at the bottom of the information provided. One person whom I follow on Twitter regularly seeks material under FOI legislation, and also gives courses and provides training on FOI, how to access information and the questions it is necessary to ask.

Why is it necessary to provide training for people to get information from public bodies? Why is it that there are specific questions that need to be asked? Why must certain ways and various avenues be pursued to improve the likelihood of getting the information required? Why do we need to do that? Why does somebody need to put such a course in place? What are people hiding? That is the only reason for people to do that. If we were open, transparent and accountable, then people would not have to present training courses to show others how to get information from public bodies.

We consistently hear of cases where we are told that the required information does not exist, only to find out later, and again mostly due to persistence and the training provided by the person referred to earlier, that the information in question does exist. We have a case of that where the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Coveney, stated in the House that he had deleted texts from his phone in direct contravention of the freedom of information legislation. The Minister told the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence that he did not “retain texts for storage reasons”. Anybody who has an iPhone, or any other type of phone, will know that is quite an incredible reason to give. A spokesperson for the Minister said that: "The minister’s phone has been hacked in the past and as a result he regularly clears his phone". This is a clear example of why we need reform of our FOI legislation and why this should not be kicked down the road for another nine months.

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