Results 14,961-14,980 of 29,533 for speaker:Brendan Howlin

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (10 Jan 2013)

Brendan Howlin: No.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (10 Jan 2013)

Brendan Howlin: With the exception of some specific categories we have excluded, everybody comes under the criteria. We have pushed it as far as we can in terms of areas that traditionally fought off any efforts to include them in the freedom of information regime. I refer for example to the financial sector, which has been mentioned by the Senator. I will be a little more explicit in that regard when I...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (10 Jan 2013)

Brendan Howlin: Sorry; I should not have interjected.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (10 Jan 2013)

Brendan Howlin: Commercial semi-state bodies are excluded.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (10 Jan 2013)

Brendan Howlin: Any commercial semi-state body is excluded.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (10 Jan 2013)

Brendan Howlin: Yes.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (10 Jan 2013)

Brendan Howlin: I will not be able to be brief because a number of questions have been asked.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (10 Jan 2013)

Brendan Howlin: I will be as quick as I can. A number of important issues have been raised. I will start by dealing with the commercial side of things. Freedom of information legislation and, as in the case of our discussion of semi-State companies, the Ombudsman, should not be considered the only vehicles for achieving accountability. My strong view for a long time has been that we should have a strong...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (10 Jan 2013)

Brendan Howlin: I have already responded to the exemptions issue, which we will examine. In terms of enforcement, there are no administrative sanctions but it is a criminal offence and there are criminal sanctions against breaches of the Act. Regarding commercial semi-State bodies, we had this debate in the context of the Ombudsman. Senator Barrett was of the view that no one should be exempt from...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (10 Jan 2013)

Brendan Howlin: I also meant to mention NAMA. I will come back to the Deputy later.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (10 Jan 2013)

Brendan Howlin: That is like saying that we should have more court cases to be won. It depends on the evidence, the nature of the appeal and whether it complies with legislation.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (10 Jan 2013)

Brendan Howlin: With regard to the success rate of appeals, I do not have the data but I will see if I can find it and send it to the Deputy. I intervened to answer the other part of the question about tweaking the appeals process to allow more appeals to succeed. We set out the criteria and, as long as the application meets the criteria, the appeal should succeed. If it does not, the appeal should not...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (10 Jan 2013)

Brendan Howlin: I have an open mind on the fees issue. I do not want the systems to be overwhelmed by people submitting reams of freedom of information requests. However, many people have overcome the fee structure by simply submitting multiple requests in a number of subsets under a single freedom of information request. It is a moot point. We are now in a situation where we want administration in...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (10 Jan 2013)

Brendan Howlin: No. It would actually cost money to do the analysis of the administrative costs of every freedom of information request. We do not automatically do that.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (10 Jan 2013)

Brendan Howlin: It is a fair point but I do not wish to spend a lot of money asking every agency to track the proportion of the time spent to send out a fee notice or to collect a fee. I will have regard to it, now that the Deputy has made that point. I believe, as a general principle, that what I have set out is logical and reasonable. We are charging for base, non-personal information a fee that covers...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (10 Jan 2013)

Brendan Howlin: Personal files and the like.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (10 Jan 2013)

Brendan Howlin: On the defence question, defence will be included but a test will be established. It will be a balance between the public interest to know and the potential to cause or do harm. That is the determination that will have to be made. On the question about Shannon, if I was making the determination, I would not see that it could demonstrably cause more harm than the public right to know. That...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (10 Jan 2013)

Brendan Howlin: Many happy returns.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (10 Jan 2013)

Brendan Howlin: I thank Deputy Fleming for his questions and for taking the considerable trouble of drafting his own Bill, which was helpful in terms of allowing debate on the issue prior to finalisation by Government of its own Bill and in pushing the hands of Government, which is a useful thing to do on issues of importance. I was glad to be able to accept it. My officials will take note of everything...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform (10 Jan 2013)

Brendan Howlin: I thank the committee for facilitating this meeting. The President of the European Commission and all European Commissioners are in town and we spent the morning having very constructive dialogue, not only on our Presidency agenda but on matters which are very important to the country, and I greatly appreciate the Chairman facilitating my late arrival. We will take the speech as read. The...