Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Go raibh maith agat, a Chathaoirligh. I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Harris, to the House. This is my first time speaking since he came here, so I wish him well on his appointment and he is already doing a fantastic job. I am taking this debate on behalf of my colleague, Senator Sheahan, who has been called away to a meeting in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.

Senator Byrne has expressed a wish that Members of the Seanad can perfect this Bill and make it the best it can be.

The Senate is all about enhancing legislation and ensuring we can identify areas for improvement. We seek to make legislation foolproof and as good as possible.

The notion of freedom of information took off during the Government that ran from 1994 to 1997 and was led by Eithne Fitzgerald. It was a new departure in transparency, openness and accountability. When John Bruton was elected as Taoiseach he spoke of a transparent, open and accountable Government in his inaugural speech. I believe he said the Government should operate behind a sheet of glass and this is an aspiration with which we all agree. Unfortunately, the Freedom of Information Bill that passed in 1997 was tweaked and restrictions were put in place. Historians will decide whether those restrictions were well-intended but the Bill is now being recalibrated appropriately to ensure the openness and accountability that people expect of us. It is right and good that bodies in receipt of significant taxpayer funding will now be subject to freedom of information provisions. Some charities in Ireland received up to €40 million and €50 million of taxpayers' money and there was no access to their records. They were dragged kicking and screaming before the Committee of Public Accounts, PAC, and even then the level of co-operation was frighteningly poor. We in this House have the power to change this and this piece of legislation will do so.

There is always the prospect that freedom of information can be abused. I know of a local authority where the equality tribunal process was abused in such a way that every decision the local authority made was appealed to that body by a specific individual. The legislation facilitated this so I must ask whether there is a way to rule on rogue claims. Standard freedom of information requests should be free but we must ensure the process is not abused because we are still in a challenging financial environment.

Bodies providing information should have the right to insist it is only provided electronically. We should avoid the use of reams of paper to provide information. In the spirit of the paperless society, exemplified by the elimination of Government Department cheques, we should move towards electronic freedom of information. We should promote environmental objectives.

This Bill is appropriate and correct, though we may not get much recognition in the media for this important legislation. When we do good things here they are rarely covered so I appeal to members of the fourth estate to alert the general public to the fact that this debate is taking place. We are attempting to proactively open up Government. During the 2011 presidential election one or two of the candidates were prepared to open their affairs to the scrutiny of freedom of information requests.