Seanad debates

Thursday, 20 March 2003

Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2003: Report and Final Stages.

 

The requirement of the current Act is that this must be printed in Iris Oifigiúil and we all accepted last week during a lengthy debate that it is not practical to ask a Secretary General to do that on every occasion. We also felt it important that people understand who is making a decision and is responsible in a particular section or Department for making a decision. We also felt that, if one makes an application, one individual will deal with it, that there will be no change of horses in mid-stream and that one will not end up with another individual making a decision at the end of the process. All of that requires that the public, when making requests, should know who will make a decision. There should be a list of individuals who are dealing with requests and the sections for which they are responsible. This need not necessarily be in Iris Oifigiúil but should be available to the public in some form. As far as I recall, the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Ahern, suggested that he would be willing to place some obligation on Secretaries General to ensure that there was such a list available to the public when they are making a request.

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