Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The review should also examine how FOI officers deal with FOI requests across different Departments, bodies and such. The standard of response people get and the way requests are dealt with are very mixed. That is very important.

The Minister spoke about the costs of an FOI project. That is true. The raw cost to the Exchequer can be calculated with a very high degree of certainty. There is no doubt about that. I hope the Minister intends to look at the intentions in his Department to use proposals to restrict access to information or gut the already weak and inadequate legislation as a cost-cutting measure. We should be providing more information. The Minister mentioned that information should be widely available. If the Departments published everything, they would have very little to do with FOI. The information would be provided in order that people would be able to get it if they wanted it. That is ultimately what this is about. The cost of operating this FOI system is prohibitive and unnecessary and leads to a mistrust in the State.

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