Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is a pleasure to meet the Minister again.

On the issue of freedom of information, I am not seeking to have broadened the areas covered, although I am very happy to see information made available to the general public on any occasion and subject.However, there are some things that I regard as repugnant, namely, the spate of freedom of information requests that come into this House. There was an freedom of information request yesterday that concerned my secretary's name. My secretary is a lady who came to me after I was elected, looked for a job, went through a formal interview process and got that job. Her employment with me is private to her. If she chooses to make her name known, I welcome her doing so but it is outrageous that any journalist anywhere in the country would start making freedom of information requests for the names of people who work in my office. If they want to know whether I hired my wife, daughter, son, granny or anyone else, they can just ask me. They can pick up the phone and ask me. Some clown sought information about my salary under freedom of information. I am sorry if I have referred to them as a clown but my salary is on the web. If they want to see what I earn, they should look on the web. If they want to see what my expenses are, they should look on the web. Let us stop wasting the time of public servants answering what I regard as vexatious freedom of information requests.

When the freedom of information tool was introduced, it was commendable. It opened up Government and made it available to the people. Departments and decisions made by Ministers have been made available to the people. Is it important to know whether I hired Mary Murphy, Julia Maguire or John O'Dwyer? Does it really matter? If I took a flight to Brussels on behalf of the State or for some work associated with it, is it really that important? People can make those types of requests under freedom of information if they wish. Where we are talking about individuals employed in this House who are not public representatives and have not put themselves before the public, there is an onus on the Data Protection Commissioner to protect their identities if they want to do that. If someone wants to know whether I have employed relations, they should ask me straight out. I will be writing to the Data Protection Commissioner about this issue. I regard it as a gross intrusion into my secretary's life. If I was to write to Bank of Ireland, IBM or Microsoft and ask for a list of the secretaries there and the managers who employed them, would I get that information? Would I have any reason to get that information? Is it any of my business?

Will the Minister, as the Minister with responsibility for this, support me on this issue? If someone wants to know about relatives working for Members of the Oireachtas, they should ask straight out. Incidentally, I am not condemning that either. I am not saying it is wrong where a Member of the Oireachtas may have an unemployed son or daughter who would be capable of taking on the work. Perhaps the media will have a go at me for this but I suppose it is time.