Results 12,221-12,240 of 16,492 for speaker:Ciarán Lynch

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2012: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Ciarán Lynch: I concur with that, Deputy McDonald.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2012: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Ciarán Lynch: Ms Murambinda needs to be mindful of discussing individual cases and people's medical needs. Somebody's medical history is not something that comes under the Freedom of Information Acts. What can be available is an agency's record of how many ill people there are. I must separate one process from the other.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2012: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Ciarán Lynch: We need to be careful. We must separate that discussion or we will get into two separate issues. The day-to-day management of the centres is a matter more pertinent to the justice committee. There is then the information on how tendering is conducted and the results. Is it policy, for example, that food is distributed in this manner or is that decision in the hands of the tenderer? There...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2012: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Ciarán Lynch: I welcome the witnesses before the committee this afternoon. I will raise three items before inviting other members of the committee to speak. As the Minister has outlined legislation, there will be aspects of the Garda Síochána's operations that will come within its scope. The presentation this afternoon referred to two issues about which we would like more information. With...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2012: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Ciarán Lynch: Does the reception and integration agency have that information but is not releasing it or has the information not been logged? Has the information been compiled or is it that there is no access to it?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2012: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Ciarán Lynch: Has it provided reasons for that? Mr. Bukha indicated that a Deputy put down a parliamentary question so when the Minister responded, was any detail given? Was it a holding answer because the information was not available?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2012: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Ciarán Lynch: I am not sure if that is a systems problem or a problem regarding access to information. Is the agency compiling the information? It would be a revelation if that was not the case. Does the agency have the information but it is outside the remit of the Freedom of Information Act?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2012: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Ciarán Lynch: The presentation indicates that certain agencies should be included in the first Schedule of the Act, including the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner, the Refugee Appeals Tribunal, the Garda National Immigration Bureau and the Irish Nationalisation and Immigration Service. Are those agencies currently outside the legislation?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2012: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Ciarán Lynch: Are the witnesses concerned with the entirety of those operations or specific aspects? In his engagement with the committee, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin, there was consideration of general Garda operational matters. It is not that he organisation would provide information regarding criminal investigations but rather statistical information etc. There is a...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2012: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Ciarán Lynch: We would like examples of the correspondence and replies from the Department indicating that the information has not been given to the group.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2012: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Ciarán Lynch: We will continue now with session three of our pre-legislative examination of the Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2012. This is part of a pre-scrutiny process allowing various groups and witnesses to present their ideas and views on how the legislation should progress. At the end of this process, the committee will make a series of recommendations to the Minister, Deputy Howlin, in...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2012: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Ciarán Lynch: I thank Mr. Sheridan for coming and for presenting a very enlightening and differently informed view of the route the legislation may need to take. I thank him for his deliberations and for sharing his information with the committee. I know Mr. Sheridan was in the public gallery earlier and that he was here when the Minister, Deputy Howlin, was here and that he is very interested in this...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2012: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Ciarán Lynch: That is an interesting observation because this country's waste management strategy is based on the idea that the role of the Government and the local authority system should be to develop policy in this area before contracting out the implementation of that policy.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2012: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Ciarán Lynch: I would like to ask Mr. Sheridan a final question before I bring this part of the meeting to a conclusion. The initial legislation, which was introduced in 1997 and adjusted in 2003, is being examined again in 2013. It is expected that the forthcoming Bill will, at a minimum, repeal many of the things that were done in 2003, return us to the 1997 position and make progress from there....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2012: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Ciarán Lynch: The perceived concern is that when information is provided under freedom of information in its original format, which may be a financial cost table, spreadsheet or database, such a record might reveal more than what the applicant is actually looking for. If someone wants to know the specific amount of money that was spent by Department under a certain heading, that is a factual and static...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2012: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Ciarán Lynch: Can I draw Mr. Sheridan out on this point? This was the one part of his submission that struck me. He advocated providing records in machine-readable formats. As this probably is where Mr. Sheridan is going, can he tell members more about that?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2012: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Ciarán Lynch: Mr. Sheridan should explain technically what that means. Does he mean using PDFs or JPEGs or in open source software?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2012: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Ciarán Lynch: You cannot manipulate the text.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2012: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Ciarán Lynch: Right.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2012: Discussion (6 Feb 2013)

Ciarán Lynch: That was the word I was searching for earlier when talking about the competitive nature of the media. The object is to get a scoop. I thank Mr. Sheridan for reminding me.