Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I accept this body is covered by the Freedom of Information Act. All the bodies will be covered. I am not happy that the definition of "confidential information" contained in this section is "information that is expressed by the Office or the Taoiseach to be confidential either as regards particular information or as regards information of a particular class or description". I believe it should state "Office of the Taoiseach". I do not wish to be pedantic about such matters.

This is an issue worthy of a little debate. I am not happy that the bodies are set up to report to the Taoiseach. It would be much better if they reported to the Oireachtas through the Taoiseach. Does this mean that if the Taoiseach did not like the contents of a particular report, he or she could classify it as confidential? It would therefore be delayed at least until a freedom of information request was made, and the usual three months or so go by.

I have no problem with confidential information being kept confidential, and nobody else would have either. I am not very happy that confidential information is information defined as such by the Taoiseach's office. Perhaps it is another office. I apologise, I am wrong. The Bill refers to "the Office or the Taoiseach". Both can state that information is confidential. I presume the Bill is referring to the National Economic and Social Development Office, which can express information as confidential. The Taoiseach can do likewise. I am mistaken.

I do not like the idea that anything stipulated by these two entities would be confidential. I will not make a big issue out of the matter. I wish we could provide something better. Subsection (2)(b), referring to commercial information, clearly has a good reason as such information is often confidential. Any other type of information should be subject to some test. Any material which is clearly covered by the Freedom of Information Act should automatically not be confidential. There should be no blanket capacity to express any information as confidential.