Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

They were. Official information held by the public sector can and should be made available but we must have regard for privacy concerns. Where exemptions exist, they correspond to those found in FOI legislation in the most regressive jurisdictions that I have looked at. In addition, many of these exemptions are not absolute but will require to be subjected to public interest tests. My FOI reforms also encompass some highly significant enhancements and innovations in the legislation that are aimed at substantially transforming the environment for FOI in Ireland. We looked very carefully at what is happening in the best jurisdictions abroad in that regard.

A key element in the Bill is the requirement to prepare and furnish publication schemes - there has been some misunderstanding about this - to promote the proactive publication of information outside of FOI and in a more accessible form. These publication schemes will set out the nature of the information an organisation publishes on its website, including extensive information on the nature, role, responsibilities and activities of any such organisation. To ensure that there is no question whatsoever that less information would be made available by public bodies under the publication schemes than under the current regime, I made an important amendment in the Dáil specifying key information that would be required for inclusion in a publication scheme. The idea is to promote the proactive publication of as much information as possible without the need for FOI and there should be access point for all of that.

Other innovative elements of the FOI reform legislation that are very significant include the inclusion in the Bill of key principles to guide public bodies in the performance of their functions under the Act. During this whole process I learned that the application of the original 1997 Act was treated differently by different public bodies. Some embraced it enthusiastically and some less enthusiastically. There is a need for standard guidelines and proper training for FOI officers, as provided for in this Bill, including the need to achieve greater openness, strengthen accountability and decision making and facilitate more effective participation by the public in consultations relating to the role, responsibilities and performance of FOI bodies. Also in the Bill there are provisions to enable extension of FOI to non-public bodies in receipt of significant Exchequer funding by way of ministerial order in the future. There are many public bodies who receive a large amount of their funding from the State purse and there is no reason, simply because they are NGOs or private sector bodies, they would not be subject to FOI if the taxpayer is funding them. I was asked outside if I could include An Taisce. I do not know because I do not know what funding it gets. There are bodies that can be looked at in that regard if they are significantly funded by the State.