Seanad debates
Tuesday, 4 March 2003
Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2003: Second Stage (Resumed).
I wish to touch on the section of the Bill dealing with briefing for parliamentary questions. Once again this allows Ministers to shelter behind the defence that someone did not ask the right question and so on and basically word their responses to parliamentary questions in a way which protects them from the truth. The late Mr. Justice Hamilton commented that if Ministers had answered questions clearly and truthfully and in their totality, there would have been no need to expend £35 million of taxpayers' money on the beef tribunal. That is the greatest insult to the intelligence of any nation.
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