Brendan Ryan (Labour)

That the authority should define what is confidential is a bad idea. I have said this about every Bill I have dealt with in this House. We ought to have an objective test of what is confidential because different bodies come to different conclusions. Coillte, for instance, which is a publicly owned organisation, keeps insisting that it is not and is therefore not bound by the obligations of transparency by which public bodies are bound. It claims to be a private organisation, which it manifestly is not. Its interpretation of its own confidentiality is different from that of other agencies which believe they are bound by the reasonable rules of disclosure.

On the issue of disclosure, I have long held the view that we ought to have some objective test so matters that are not covered by the Freedom of Information Act should, by definition, be regarded as confidential. Instead, we have circumstances in which anything the authority says is confidential is confidential. This is a bit like the circumstances in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.