Dominic Hannigan (Labour)

I move: "That the Bill be now read a second time".

I welcome the Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Deputy Noel Ahern. The Labour Party believes that the best form of government is open and honest. The reputation of politicians on this island suffered in the 1970s, the 1980s and in the early 1990s to the point where permanent changes were needed to the way we operated and did our business. It took the introduction of three Acts to provide the foundation for a code of moral practice for parties in Government.

The first Act to which I refer is the Ethics in Public Office Act 1995 which was designed to draw a line between the business interests of politicians, their private interests and their role as public representatives. It introduced stipulations regarding disclosure of donations, gifts and any other interests. The Electoral Act 1997 was designed to expose political expenditure, party donations and electoral spending. The third Act was the Freedom of Information Act 1997 which was established to lift the veil on Government and to allow people to get access to information on how their Government worked for them.

The Minister's brother, our outgoing Taoiseach, Deputy Bertie Ahern, in an enthusiastic speech at the time of the introduction of the Freedom of Information Bill in 1998, said it was essential in order to deepen our democracy. I do not think his enthusiasm was very long lived because only four years later five Secretaries-General from various Departments got together, headed by the Secretary-General from the Department of the Taoiseach, to review the operation of the Freedom of Information Act. After six months of review they presented a 21-page document to the then Minister for Finance, former Deputy Charlie McCreevy, outlining some changes that they wanted to see in the legislation.

It was not clear whether other Ministers, civil servants or Freedom of Information committees in any of the Departments were consulted at the time. Was the Information Commissioner consulted? My fear is that none of those people was consulted. The result of the review was that several changes were introduced to the operation of the legislation. There was a ten-year exemption on all Cabinet papers — along with a broadened definition of a Cabinet paper and a Government meeting. This meant more and more documents were included in the exemption process.

There was then a review of the information pertaining to policy development. This effectively disallowed members of the public from seeing how policy was put together and formulated, who weighed into the decisions and what was said by whom. There was a dramatic broadening of what constituted a concealable document by the Department of Foreign Affairs. This was broadened to include various EU negotiations. This flies in the face of what we are trying to achieve at the moment as regards the Lisbon treaty, when one of the benefits we are advocating for people is more accountability and more openness. The Council of Ministers has to be open to the public when legislation is being discussed, yet one of the changes to our legislation a few years ago made it more difficult to find out what was going on when it came to European Union negotiations.

The other area where change was introduced was in regard to fees. A fee of €15 to €150 was attached to applications under the Freedom of Information Act. This has resulted in a significant reduction in the number of applications. In the first quarter of 2003, there were 3,000 applications. This dropped off in the second quarter to 1,700, after the introduction of the fee and by the third quarter there were just 1,000 applications. The fee effectively reduced the number of applications by two-thirds. Also, a fee of €150 was introduced for the appeals process. When we tried to find out how this was justified, we were told we could not have this information under the Freedom of Information Act. One of the problems is that it has become more and more difficult to get information as a result of these fees.

These amendments have led to further increases in the number of exemptions allowed. As a result people such as the Information Commissioner, Emily O'Reilly, have called for the abolition of these fees. She claims the public is being put off by the costs involved in seeking information. Commissioner O'Reilly even pointed out that Ireland is out of line with the European Commission which does not charge any fee for freedom of information requests.

There is a necessity for bodies such as the Central Bank and the Garda Síochána to be included in a properly working Freedom of Information Act. The Labour Party has included a proposal in this regard in the legislation it is proposing today. We are seeking to re-establish the Freedom of Information Act in its entirety. We want to eliminate the cynical changes that were made a few years ago. We also want to introduce certain recommendations that the Information Commission has been pushing for over a number of years.

We seek to redefine the public bodies that will be open to Freedom of Information Act requests, including the Garda Síochána, the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority, the Adoptions Board, the Personal Injuries Assessment Board, the Law Society and many others. Since the introduction of the Government's amendments in 2003, many Departments have sought refuge from the Irish public by hiding behind clauses of secrecy provided by other Acts, and this Bill will introduce more than 70 specific provisions to end that and guarantee that the Irish people have full access to information. It will abolish the regressive 2003 amendment that introduced fees for FOI applications and appeals. At the time the then Minister for Finance, Deputy McCreevy, estimated that each application was costing about €400. The total cost of producing them was about €5 million at the time. It is clear the Government is well aware of the costs of open government, but still has no concept of the value freedom of information produces.

The Labour Party is not the only group calling for the changes proposed today. As I said, the Information Commissioner has strongly criticised the Government for what has happened to the original Freedom of Information Act. This week the most recent OECD report was published. It states:

The government should reduce barriers to public information by making all requests under the Freedom of Information Act 1997 free and extend its reach to a wider range of state agencies.

While user charges may limit frivolous requests, they also serve as a disincentive to greater openness.

We believe it is time the Government took the hint from sources such as the OECD and the Information Commission. It is time it began to trust the public again and we believe this Bill will reintroduce open and public government.