Kathleen O'Meara (Labour)

This may appear an innocuous deletion on the surface but it goes to the heart of the principles of the 1997 Act. The then Minister of State, Eithne Fitzgerald, was trying to make Departments more open and transparent and one of her approaches was to make it as easy as possible for the public to access information. Those of us who deal with Departments on a daily basis forget how intimidating it can be for the public to approach a Department and to get information. This section of the original Act deals with that.

Senator Dardis's comment regarding the delegation in writing by a head of department being "FOI-able" is a little mad. Would one have to make an FOI request to find out to whom the head of the Department has delegated functions?