Susan O'Keeffe (Labour) | Oireachtas source

Indeed. I thought the Senator might say that. I refer in particular to the work done by Heather Brooke in the UK, which many of us will recall, regarding the revelations about the House of Commons and how moneys were spent. People forget that it took her four years to overcome the hurdles involved despite having freedom of information in place. Admittedly, freedom of information legislation in the UK is relatively limited, but nonetheless she operated under it and it still took her four years to get the information into the public domain.

Those in the media understand the use of data and records. Senator Byrne was correct when he said many records are already in the public domain. I hope we will see a sea change, whereby journalists will seek to use freedom of information in the manner in which it ought to be used in order to bring real light and exposure to the way decisions are made, including those which are made well and those which are made badly. Journalists submit FOI requests to find out how many days Members of these Houses have reconciled in the past years. Some of those inquiries are fishing expeditions and they can carry on doing that if they wish, but I am not sure that is what freedom of information ought to be about.

I look forward to further discussion on the Bill. It is welcome. This is a good day. When governments water down, exclude or try to limit freedom of information, as was done in 2003, it sends a very clear signal to the public at large that it is okay for leaders, government and people in power to close the doors and keep things secret. That was not a good day for this country; this is a much better one.