Derek McDowell (Labour)

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 5, to delete lines 5 and 6.

This amendment is effectively to amend the Title of the Bill. Senators will recall from Committee Stage that we tabled this amendment because we felt the Bill was misnamed. It is not a freedom of information Bill because it is intended to restrict the availability of information. It consists of no fewer than several dozen amendments to the original Act, not one of which could be said to expand the amount of information available to people who make requests. We felt very strongly that to call it the Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill was a serious misnomer.

That view has been confirmed by the way in which the Bill has travelled so far through the House and through the Oireachtas generally. We are being asked today to consider a Report Stage which does not include a single Government amendment, despite press reports in the past week that the Government is considering substantial amendments and we know the Joint Committee on Finance and the Public Service, which has a Government majority, is considering recommending amendments to Government. With that in mind, we move the amendment which deletes the Title of the Bill as it stands.