Seanad debates
Tuesday, 4 March 2003
Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2003: Second Stage (Resumed).
I find sinister and subjective the idea of establishing a committee to decide what is relevant. The committee referred to in the Bill will decide what information is designated as being there to support Government deliberations. That is utterly subjective. It will give power to this group to decide what comes under this legislation and what does not. This is not defined in the Bill and it may be found that it becomes a wide umbrella in the years to come. This suppression of information could easily drift into areas which were not intended by those who framed the Bill. It is not a tight Bill, it is extremely subjective.
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