Seanad debates

Tuesday, 11 March 2003

Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2003: Committee Stage.

 

If we agree to this extension of the neither confirm nor deny provision, it will not be necessary to do any of that. It will not be necessary for the head of a Department or the person making the decision to set out why he or she chose not to release information and I suspect that a good deal less information will be released because none of us would know whether it was there in the first instance. There will be an option for the Department of Finance, in this particular case, to close off the information by neither confirming nor denying that a representation was made because that is the easiest option. There might be circumstances in which the Department would be tempted to actively seek to conceal such information.

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.