John Paul Phelan (Fine Gael)

The Minister of State will be getting his redundancy papers in the near future – the sooner the better.

I read some of the contributions to the debate on the original Act. There was a very interesting statement by Deputy O'Dea, now Minister of State at the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. He was once famously described as Mighty Mouse in Limerick and a church mouse in Dublin. He was most vociferous in speaking on the FOI legislation and actually said it did not go half far enough. His silence in regard to the amending legislation speaks volumes, as does the silence of Government Senators.

I do not have any problem being here at 1.30 a.m., although there are many places I would prefer to be. It is an exercise in parliamentary democracy for us to express our strongly held views on this regressive legislation. As someone who is new to politics and has not used the FOI Act up to now, I have been struck by the number who have been in contact with me in recent days to express their serious concern in regard to this issue. As Senator Feighan said, while it is an issue that affects journalists, the vast majority looking for information are ordinary Joe Soaps who are most concerned about the amendment to the legislation.