Freedom of Information requests being published before being processed

Victor

I wonder if the journalists could claim "commercial sensitivity" to protect the requests?

http://home.eircom.net/content/irelandcom/breaking/1176325?view=Eircomnet

FOI practice by Department of Communications criticised
From:ireland.com
Monday, 11th August, 2003

The release of Freedom of Information (FOI) material on the Web by the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources has been criticised by the National Union of Journalists (NUJ).

Earlier today, the Minister of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources Mr Dermot Ahern announced the expansion of the practice to include all the divisions of the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources.

Last April, Mr Ahern announced that he would place details of Freedom of Information requests relating to his Department on his Departmental website.

Every Freedom of Information request is placed on the Department's website as soon as it is received - even before the requester has received an official acknowledgement, meaning that journalists from rival newspapers can view each others FOI requests and find out what stories the request making journalist is attempting to break.

National organiser of the NUJ, Mr Seamus Dooley told ireland.com that publishing requests was a "cynical exercise designed to inhibit rather than promote the Freedom of Information Act".

Mr Dooley added that the practice of publishing FOI requests on the web would deter journalists from making requests in future.

Stories that have been broken in recent years using FOI include the tensions between Mr McCreevy and Mr Martin over health spending; the spiralling costs of the Abbotstown stadium project; the state of the public finances before the last election; the handling of the controversial attempt to appoint Mr Hugh O'Flaherty to the European Investment Bank; and the church/State negotiations over compensation for clerical abuse victims.

Mr Dooley suggested that a compromise be reached whereby the publication of the request and more importantly the response was delayed so that a particular journalist could publish his or her story before it became available to the public.

Other Government Departments are considering bringing in the practice used by Mr Ahern's Department including, the Departments of Finance, Education, Foreign Affairs, Health, Environment, Justice, Enterprise, Trade and Employment, and Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs.

So far only FOI material relating to the broadcasting sector of the Department of Communications have been published on the Departments website .

Currently, 15 FOI requests and responses to the broadcasting division between April and July 2003 are available to view and download on the website.

"The number of pages involved (scanned and actually released) here is running at 4046 (an average of 270 pages released per request). This is a very sizeable body of material available to the public at large and literally just a mouse click away," said Mr Ahern.

"This material provides a rich vein of information into how Government operates and opens the window on how Government Departments and State companies and agencies under their remit do their business," he added.

sceptre

<strokes non-existant beard>

When I first read what Victor posted I instantly thought of the procedure at the Bertie's daughter's wedding[1] when anything was leaked: leak it to all the reporters so no-one will get an exclusive. Having read it a second time, I've come to the same conclusion: in a roundabout way, it seems as though they're trying to gag the press by giving all of them all the information. There's no incentive to the reporters to try and break a story if someone else can get the jump on them. Far fewer people read governmant departmental websites than the Irish dailies. That's some nice manoeuvering from a government that doesn't want people to know things.






[1]No idea of the girl's name. I do know she's getting married to the fat one in Westlife who can't sing though. I wish them well.

dahamsta

I happened by Karlin's blog the other day looking for something else and came across a post about this. Karlin's kranky about it.

Sceptre, with eloquence like that I'm surprised you weren't invited to the wedding.

adam

Absolam

I think this is a typically Irish political response; we'll give you what you want, and pretend we're being nice, but we're trying to put one over on you. The pubilc would be better served if all the information was posted on the website immediately, eliminating the need for a request, as in countries like Sweden where freedom of information means you are free to access the information, not free to ask to access the information.