FOI amendments -current bills

Cabinet to modify restrictions on access to personal information
From:ireland.com
Thursday, 27th March, 2003

The Government is to modify its proposals to restrict access to personal information held by public bodies but will press ahead with plans to limit the release of Government and other official records.

The Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, is today expected to signal his intention to make some changes to his controversial Bill to restrict the Freedom of Information Act.

He will do so during his closing speech on the second-stage Dáil debate on the Bill, which was severely disrupted yesterday and on Tuesday by Labour deputies claiming the changes are being rammed through the Oireachtas without proper consultation.

While the key restrictions on the release of information relating to Government will be retained, Mr McCreevy is expected to respond to pressure on the issue of access to personal information.

He is expected to alter the plan to give members of the public access only to records that "contain" personal information about them. Under existing law they can also receive records that "relate to" such personal information.

A group representing victims of clerical sex abuse, One in Four, has objected strongly to this restriction, saying it will hamper victims' ability to gain access to all relevant documents concerning their past treatment.

The Oireachtas Committee on Finance and the Public Service accepted this point when it held hearings on the Government's plans a fortnight ago.

As well as this change, other minor amendments are expected which will allow for the charging of lower fees for Freedom of Information requests to certain categories of requester, such as disadvantaged people.

Mr McCreevy also said on Tuesday that he was considering an amendment to allow relatives of minors and people with disabilities to have personal information amended where it was incorrect, incomplete or misleading.

Such persons should also have the right to have reasons for certain decisions affecting them explained, he said.

However, Government sources said last night that despite these changes, Mr McCreevy was determined to retain the central elements of the Bill restricting the release of official documents.

These include the extension from five to 10 years of the period during which Cabinet records cannot be released, as well as keeping secret advice given to ministers and letters between ministers.

Mr McCreevy signalled this in his speech on Tuesday night in which he defended all of the key elements of the Bill.

These included the extension from five to 10 years of the period before Cabinet papers can be released; the exemption from release of documents prepared by committees and individuals advising ministers; the exemption of communication between ministers, and the granting to secretaries general of the power to certify that a "deliberative process" is ongoing and that certain documents should therefore be kept secret.

He dismissed the concerns expressed by the Information Commissioner, Mr Kevin Murphy, in his recent commentary on the issue.

"I am fully satisfied that any concerns raised in this report about the Government's Bill are not justified," he said, while saying the report had been a "useful contribution to the debate".

In the Dáil debate yesterday, PD deputy Ms Fiona O'Malley sharply criticised the way in which the changes had been made, saying they had been "sprung on an unsuspecting parliament and on an unsuspecting public".

She said she did not believe the assurances from Mr McCreevy that the changes would not curtail access to personal information.

The case for the amendment to be abandoned had been made by the One in Four group, she said, and she believed it would deny such people information which was important in the redress process.

She was also concerned about the proposed new definition of "Government" which would serve to conceal many documents produced by advisory committees and individuals that were previously released.

This change "would permit a very wide and somewhat arbitrary net to be cast" and would exclude much information from the provisions of the Act.

McCreevy not 'daft enough' to list FoI problems
From:ireland.com
Thursday, 3rd April, 2003

The Minister for Finance said he was not "daft enough" to list difficulties that arose in Government in the past six years because of the Freedom of Information Act.

Mr McCreevy also said there was a "lot of hypocrisy" about the FoI Act. "I can tolerate almost anything in life, but hypocrisy I despise and it seems to be endemic among politicians," he said. He had been at meetings where TDs and senators had asked if the discussion was subject to FoI and adjusted their remarks accordingly.

"The same TDs and senators are then out criticising the changes in the Act and claiming that it was bad for government."

Mr McCreevy warned that at future meetings he would insist on a record being kept and it would be open to full public scrutiny. He was speaking during heated exchanges at the committee stage discussion on the Bill to amend the current Act

However, Fine Gael's spokesman, Mr Richard Bruton, accused the Minister of "bombast" and "bullying your way into suppressing information" and said it was "sad" that the Minister was never going to give them examples of "harm" done by the Act in the past six years.

Deputies were dealing with controversial proposals in the Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill, including the exemption of correspondence between Ministers from public scrutiny and delaying the release of Cabinet documents from five to 10 years.

Opposition deputies had repeatedly and without success pressed the Minister to outline examples of where the FoI had affected or interfered with good government. Mr Bruton said there was "not a shred of evidence that this is about better government but about weak Ministers protecting their hides". He called for a single concrete example of where a decision had been affected by the Act.

Mr McCreevy said: "I may have done some extraordinary things in my time, but do you think I'm daft enough to list out" problems which arose? "Do you think I'm nearly ready to be taken away?" He also asked did Mr Bruton really think that any civil servant would cite, if asked, problems which arose because of the impact of FoI.

Mr Bruton put it that there was not a single memo that the Minister had spiked because of fears about it getting into the public domain. The high-level group of five Government Department secretary generals had stated that it had "no experience" of civil servants not writing down information or taking decisions because of concerns about future publication. Mr McCreevy replied that "for God's sake", civil servants were not going to say that there were difficulties.

Mr Bruton said the Government was "bullying your way into suppressing information" and "slinking away from your obligations". There had not been concerns over the previous five years. It was a "political stroke", a decision taken in June last year and the Government wanted to "bury the evidence, having fooled the public in the run-up to the election".