Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I know that in the specific case in which I was involved, in the course of the debate of this particular issue in both the High Court and the Supreme Courts a great deal of focus was placed on the very important right of privacy. There are countervailing rights such as the right to one's good name and the right to not interfere in the course of justice. If I discussed knowledge I had about a fundamental misconduct of justice that had somebody incarcerated, should my right to privacy be greater than somebody's incarceration? All rights are balanced against other people's and other rights. No right, normally, is absolutely fundamental to the point that it supersedes other's rights, even to live, to not be incarcerated or oppressed, or to be deprived of a range of rights. In those contexts, we can talk in absolutist terms but these things are not absolute. On balance, my view is that to corral into an immune space all communications between two members of the Government that they deem to be private so that it becomes an impediment, a debar and an impenetrable wall is an assertion that would undermine the principle. It has undermined, in my judgment, the proper enactment of FOI since it was amended by Fianna Fáil in 2003.