Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senators from all sides of the House for their support for this motion.

Fianna Fáil’s record on freedom of information is inglorious and we will take no lectures from the party on it. There is a certain populist tone coming from Senator Byrne when he speaks about a bonus culture and so forth. That runs well in a newspaper headline. However, practices have been bedded down by Bord Gáis Éireann, for example, to save considerable moneys with a move away from an incremental pay arrangement to a performance-based one, a model towards which all commercial semi-State bodies and, ultimately, State agencies, should work.

There is a broader view, which Senator Reilly expressed, that we need freedom of information and a range of other impositions on commercial semi-State bodies but that do not apply to their commercial rivals. That would make it impossible for commercial semi-States to operate in the marketplace. I know there are some of the view it would be good to kill off the commercial semi-State sector, a view not shared by my party or myself. There is a case, however, to be made for extending freedom of information to semi-State bodies which are monopolies. Accordingly, I was always going to apply freedom of information to Irish Water once it was up and running and the legislation was enacted. In fact, I actually fast-tracked it, even though the legislation is still on Report Stage in the Dáil.

When a Minister listens and accepts arguments and motions, it should not be labelled by Members as a U-turn or coming in with one’s tail between one’s legs. Do they want Ministers to say “No” repeatedly? Is that the way Parliament should operate?