Tag Archives: FOI

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The Next Government Must be a Reforming Government

Speaking in the Dáil this evening on Labour’s Private Member’s motion on reforming governance, Deputy Burton said that “restoring Ireland’s shattered reputation is a critical challenge facing the next government – and it is most certainly only with a new government that we can begin to restore it.

“We need a clean break with the past, to forget the old way of doing things.

“If we are to restore the trust of our people in the republic, and of investors in our creditworthiness, we must usher in a new era of open, transparent, accountable governance. 

“The next government must signal loud and clear that it will be a reforming government, and that it will rise to the many challenges we face as a people.”

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Employment & Economy

Financial Bodies Must be Brought Under Scope of FOI

I would like to welcome today’s publication by Information Commissioner Emily O’Reilly of her Annual Report, and congratulate her for the excellent work that she and her staff are doing in this regard.

The increase in requests for information under Freedom of Information legislation is positive, but at 14,290 still falls far short of the 17,196 applications received in 2002, before the fees were increased. This indicates that the culture of transparency has still not taken hold at senior level in our public administration.

The dramatic increase in requests to the Dept of Finance, up 325 per cent on 2008, would indicate that citizens have real concerns about how the government has been handling the economic, fiscal and financial crises that have been bogging this country down in recent years.

There is genuine anger at the cack-handed manner in which the Govt has responded to these problems and the provisions of the FOI Act provide one of the only ways for members of the public to get meaningful answers.

I believe that the scope of FOI needs to be extended. In particular if transparency in the economic management of our country is to mean anything, State institutions such as the NAMA, Central Bank and Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ireland, the National Treasury Management Agency, the National Pensions Reserve Fund Commission and the State Claims Agency, should be brought under the scope of FOI.

Labour’s Freedom of Information Amendment Bill, published in 2008, would reform FOI and would also bring bodies such as the Garda Ombudsman Commission, the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board, Vocational Educational Committees, the State Examinations Commission and the Residential Institutions Redress Board.

In fact we believe that ALL public bodies should by default, be included under the provisions of the Act, unless specifically excluded.

The Freedom of Information legislation enacted by the Rainbow government was grounded in the belief that public bodies must be accountable to the ordinary public they are there to serve and that accountability requires openness. By contrast, Fianna Fail has always been hostile the concept of freedom of information and has done its best to undermine the provisions of the original Act.

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Employment & Economy

Financial Bodies Must be Brought Under Scope of FOI

The increase in requests for information under Freedom of Information legislation is welcome, but at 12,672 still falls far short of the 17,196 applications received in 2002, before the fees were increased. This indicates that the culture of transparency has still not taken hold at senior level in our public administration.

I believe that this increase has come about as a result of people’s frustration at the rapid economic downturn, and in particular the cack-handed manner in which the Govt has responded to it. People are still angry at the gross mishandling of our banking system, our economy and of our public funds, and are looking for answers. The provisions of the FOI Act provide one of the only ways for members of the public to get meaningful answers.

More needs to be done, and I would call for the provision of FOI to be extended. In particular if transparency in the economic management of our country is to mean anything, State institutions such as the Central Bank and Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ireland, the National Treasury Management Agency, the National Pensions Reserve Fund Commission and the State Claims Agency, should be brought under the scope of FOI.

Labour’s Freedom of Information Amendment Bill, published last year, would reform FOI and would also bring bodies such as the Garda Ombudsman Commission, the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board, Vocational Educational Committees, the State Examinations Commission and the Residential Institutions Redress Board.

In fact we believe that ALL public bodies should by default, be included under the provisions of the Act, unless specifically excluded.

The Freedom of Information legislation enacted by the Rainbow government was grounded in the belief that public bodies must be accountable to the ordinary public they are there to serve and that accountability requires openness. By contrast, Fianna Fail has always been hostile the concept of freedom of information and has done its best to undermine the provisions of the original Act.

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Employment & Economy

Nationalised Anglo Still Shrouded in Secrecy

The Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Joan Burton TD, has criticised the decision of the Department of Finance to withhold three out of four of all the documents relating to Anglo Irish Bank and the communications between the Minister for Finance, his officials and Anglo, which she had sought under the Freedom of Information Act.

Deputy Burton said that the decision to release only one in four of the documents sought suggested that the Department of Finance was intent on continuing to draw a veil of secrecy over the events that led to the government decision to firstly put in place the bank guarantee scheme and the later decision to nationalise Anglo.

“This has been a hugely expensive twelve months for the Irish taxpayer with the bank guarantee scheme exposing the Exchequer to a potential liability of €54bn and the decision to nationalise Anglo likely to cost up to €7bn. The taxpayers have right to be made aware of the factors that led to these decisions.

“Of the 90 documents deemed relevant to my Freedom of Information request, 64 have been refused for release point blank, 10 have been partially released, 13 have been released in their entirety and a further 3 documents are the subject of further third-party consultations.
“I tabled my original request in July and for months, the Department of Finance have been playing games before finally replying to my Freedom of Information request last week. After all that, they have only agreed to release a quarter of the relevant documentation, much of which is relatively innocuous. The cover-up continues.

Decisions to withhold documents were made under a range of provisions in the Act, including Section 24, which deals with ‘security defence and international relations. sections . However, the most frequently cited grounds for the withholding of documents sought was that could have a ‘serious adverse effect on the financial interests of the state’. Given the serious adverse effect that Anglo has already had on the financial interests of the state, I fail to see how the situation could possibly be made any worse.

“Worryingly, there appears only to have been a single communication, in July 2008, within the Department of Finance in relation to Anglo Irish Bank in the run up to the granting of the bank guarantee on September 30th. This is astonishing given not only the fact that the global financial crisis had been in full swing for over a year, but also given the perilous state of Anglo’s own finances. This would seem to confirm that the Department of Finance and the regulatory authorities were caught completely flat-footed by the banking crisis. They appear to have been blind to the reckless endangerment with which Anglo had been engaging at the height of the property boom.

“We intend to appeal the decision to refuse to release these documents, but given how Fianna Fail has gutted the Freedom of Information Acts since they were introduced when Labour was last in Government, I wouldn’t be confident of a satisfactory outcome through this route.

“What is needed is a full and impartial investigation into the goings on at Anglo over the past two years. A special investigator, under the auspices of the High Court, must be appointed without delay.

“Anglo Irish Bank is the black hole of Irish banking. Anglo and Irish Nationwide will between them account for half of the bad loans to be taken over by NAMA. Since its panic nationalisation earlier this year, it has sucked up vital national resources, to the tune of €4bn and counting, without spitting back out a single scintilla of evidence of what went so badly wrong.

“We still have no detailed explanation of what went on in the bank. We are told of numerous inquiries by a range of agencies including the Gardai and the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement. Many citizens fear that these inquiries, like others before them, will continue for years, but with no outcome and certainly without those responsible facing the consequences of the financial ruin they have brought about for so many.

“Seanie Fitzpatrick and the rest of the golden circle of Fianna Fail’s friends may well have cost the state upwards of €15bn, or half a year’s tax revenue, when all is told, never mind the reputational damage they have done. With the Irish people on the hook for such a colossal sum, the least they deserve is to have Anglo’s dirty laundry aired in public. The cover-up just can’t be allowed to continue.”

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Education, Local Issues

Staggering Cost of D15 School Sites Revealed – Joan Burton TD

The results of Joan Burton’s recent Freedom of Information request to the Deptartment of Education have revealed that since January 1st, 2002 four school sites have been acquired for a total of nearly €26m and 20.4 acres, or nearly €1.27m per acre.

The five national schools (on three sites; four of the schools are co-located on two of the sites) concerned were St. Patrick’s in Diswellstown, Castaheaney Educate Together & St. Benedicts in Ongar and Mary Mother of Hope Junior & Senior Schools in Littlepace. The VEC acquired a further site in Phibblestown.

Commenting on these revelations, Deputy Joan Burton said:

“I was just bowled over at the mountain of money that property tycoons have been able to extract from the government for Dublin 15 school sites in recent years.

“Property developers have been facilitated with gratuitous re-zoning decisions which boosted the value of their land banks overnight without any social return for local communities.

“What has generally happened then is that the government or management authority has bought back land at the grossly inflated post re-zoning value. These same property tycoons often drive such a hard bargain that schools are both delayed and far more expensive than would otherwise have been the case.

“In my view, re-zoning decisions should be conditional on the transfer of suitable sites for schools and other local amenities to the Council or the relevant government authority at its original agricultural value, if not for free. With an ongoing need for new school places in Dublin 15, getting value for money has never been more important given the harsh economic climate.

“We have seen far too often in Dublin 15 housing estates and apartment blocks being given the go-ahead with only minimal infrastructure in place. This has caused an acute school place shortage in recent years meaning parents have had to ferry their children long distances just so they can get an education.

“There seems to have been a total lack of joined up thinking when it comes to planning. It’s obvious that if you give planning permission for several thousand new homes you are going to need new primary schools a few years later and then a secondary school a few years later.”

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Uncategorized

Financial Bodies Must be Brought Under Scope of FOI

The increase in the number of FOI requests is a significant development, and has clearly come about as a result of people’s frustration at the rapid economic downturn, and in particular the cack-handed manner in which the Govt has responded to it. People are angry at the gross mishandling of our economy and of our public funds, and are looking for answers. The provisions of the FOI Act provide one of the only ways for members of the public to get meaningful answers.

However, more needs to be done, and I would echo the sentiments of Ms O’Reilly in her call for the provision of FOI to be extended. In particular if transparency in the economic management of our country is to mean anything, State institutions such as the Central Bank and Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ireland, the National Treasury Management Agency, the National Pensions Reserve Fund Commission and the State Claims Agency, should be brought under the scope of FOI.

Labour’s Freedom of Information Amendment Bill would reform FOI and would also bring bodies such as the Garda Ombudsman Commission, the Judicial Appointments Advisory Board, Vocational Educational Committees, the State Examinations Commission and the Residential Institutions Redress Board. In fact we believe that ALL public bodies should by default, be included under the provisions of the Act, unless specifically excluded.

The increase in applications is remarkable particularly given the cost to the applicant. The FOI (Amendment) Act 2003, made the process of applying for information more cumbersome and more expensive. The fees regime subsequently introduced by statutory instrument resulted in a marked decline in usage of the Freedom of Information Acts.

The increase in applications is welcome, but at 12,672 still falls far short of the 17,196 applications received in 2002, before the fees were increased. This indicates that the culture of transparency has still not taken hold at senior level in our public administration.


Uncategorized

Need to Broaden Freedom of Information Act; Scrap Charges

The Labour Party has launched a package of three legislative proposals under the heading: ‘Broadening our Democracy: a Programme of Institutional Reform’. There are proposals for reforming the Freedom of Information Act,for regulating lobbyists making the process of for redrawing constituencies more transparent by ensuring that citizens can have their say.

Speaking at the launch of the this programme, Deputy Joan Buton called for an extension of the scope of the Freedom of Information Act to a number of key bodies including the Garda Siochana and to repeal the regime of charges for access to information introduced by the Fianna Fail/PD government in 2003.

“The Freedom of Information legislation enacted by the Rainbow government was grounded in the belief that public bodies must be accountable to the ordinary public they are there to serve and that accountability requires openness. Freedom of information overturns the presumption of official secrecy set out in the Official Secrets Act and replaces it with the legal presumption that the public has a right to know.

“Freedom of information, everywhere it has been introduced, has brought about more open government and better administration of public services. Doing business in the open is the best guarantee of efficiency.

“However, this government has always been hostile the concept of freedom of information and has done its best to undermine the original Act by introducing legislation in 2003 that severely restricted categories of information that could be applied for and by imposing a series of heavy charges designed to discourage people from using the Act.

“This Bill seeks to undo some of that damage and to extend the scope of the Act to key public bodies that this government has so far refused to have included.

“The purpose of the Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill, 2006, is to extend the ambit of operation of the Freedom of Information Acts 1997 and 2003 in three major respects.

“First, we want the definition of “public body” amended so as to apply the Acts automatically to many public bodies that are not at present included. At the moment we have to await the formal designation and prescription of these bodies by the Minister for Finance following consultation with other relevant Government Ministers.

“The principal public body affected by this amendment is the Garda Síochána. It is at present listed in the First Schedule to the Freedom of Information Act 1997 as a body to which the Act can be applied by order. However, no such order has yet been made. And, knowing this Government and this Minister for Justice, it will not be made so long as they’re in office. (A list of the other bodies on which the Bill would apply is included in the explanatory memorandum).

“Second, the Freedom of Information Act has to deal with the interaction between the access provisions of that Act and the provisions of other statutes under which disclosure of information is prohibited or non-disclosure is authorised. At present the Act provides that a public body can rely on the secrecy provisions of another Act as a ground for refusal of access to a record unless that secrecy provision is listed in the Third Schedule. If the provision is scheduled, then the disclosure regime of the Freedom of Information Acts prevails.

“This Bill proposes to insert more than 70 additional enactments into the First Schedule of the 1997 Act, thereby restricting the operation of those secrecy provisions and conferring a primacy on the disclosure policy of the Freedom of Information Acts.

“Third, a regressive amendment was introduced in 2003, in the Freedom of Information (Amendment) Act 2003, under which fees were made chargeable for applying for records under the Act (where previously fees were charged only if access was granted) and were also chargeable for applying for an internal review of a refusal of access and for appealing a refusal to the Information Commissioner.

“And, as we all know, the fees regime subsequently introduced by statutory instrument resulted in a marked decline in usage of the Freedom of Information Acts. That was of course the intention.

“The Bill proposes to repeal that amendment and to revoke that statutory instrument.”

“I hope to have the opportunity at an early stage to have the Bill debated and voted upon in the Dail”.


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Freedom of Information: What Does the Government Have to Hide?

Speaking in the University of Limerick today, at a seminar entitled ‘Democracy and the Right to Know’, Deputy Joan Burton has called for the reinstatement of the Freedom of Information regime to its former glory. She added that the Labour Party is committed to doing so if returned to government.

“The Freedom of Information Act was first introduced while Labour was last in government in 1997. This was a milestone on the road to good governance, best practice in terms of accountability and the open, modern and successful Ireland in which we now live. It was grounded in the belief that public bodies must be accountable to the ordinary public they are there to serve and that accountability requires openness.

“Freedom of information, everywhere it has been introduced, has brought about more open government and better administration of public services. Doing business in the open is the best guarantee of efficiency. It was no accident that this coincided with the take-off in Ireland’s economy, being part of the surge in openness, self-confidence and free self-expression that Ireland experience in the mid-nineties.

“Transparent governance is to be welcomed and embraced – not sniffed at or undermined. Yet, that is exactly what Fianna Fáil have done in government. One really does have to wonder what they are trying to hide.

“That this Government has an aversion to transparency, accountability and freedom of information is testament to the fact that they have presided over and squandered ballooning tax revenues. I suppose, when you see the extent of the waste, carelessness and mis-management that has come to light in recent years, we get a glimpse of exactly the sort of thing that Fianna Fáil is trying to hide from the people of this country. It would suit Fianna Fáil down to the ground if cock-ups like PPARS, the leaking Port Tunnel which went way over budget and their failure to build even a shadow of a decent public transport system could be covered up. What is in the interests of Fianna Fáil is most definitely not in the interests of the country here, however.

“In 2003, Fianna Fáil and the PDs chose to disembowel the principle of Freedom of Information as introduced by the Rainbow Government, through an amending Act. This was the wrong decision – and it smacks of a cover-up on a monumental scale. At the same time that Ministers have increasingly delegated authority – or rather, delegated blame – through a plethora of quangos, they have undermined the Freedom of Information Act so that stakeholders, the media and public representatives are caught in pincer movement of opacity, unable to get the information they need to hold the government to account.

“The fee structure introduced by Fianna Fáil and the PDs in the 2003 Act, ranging from €15-€150 is prohibitive, and does not exist in any other country with FOI legislation similar to Ireland’s. This is particularly hard on individuals and freelance journalists who now have to stump up fees for even the most straight-forward requests for information. There has been a marked decline in the number of queries made by members of the public since these fees were introduced. This may be in the interests of Fianna Fáil, but it is certainly not in the national interest.

“It was argued when these fees were first introduced that they were to cover the costs of the FOI scheme, but as it turned out, the overall some involved wouldn’t have even covered the salary of a single clerical worker, based on 2006 figures. In fact, these charges were a cynical ploy to discourage members of the public from asking awkward, but necessary, questions.

“Going back several years, the Information Commissioner, Emily O’Reilly, stated that Freedom of Information charges should be reduced or abolished. Effectively, this concurred with the long-held Labour Party position. We would like to see a return to the more transparent FOI regime of 1997. We would like to see the abolishment of fees for queries from members of the public and far fewer restrictions on the public’s access to this information than those introduced when FOI was gutted five years ago.

“In the last Dail I introduced a Private Members Bill, the Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill designed to extend the scope of the Freedom of Information Act to a number of key bodies including the Garda Siochana and to repeal the regime of charges for access to information introduced by the Fianna Fail/PD government in 2003. It would be my intention to reintroduce the Bill in the current Dail.

“A fully functioning Freedom of Information Act would allow light to be shone on government mis-management; it would allow cock-ups to be detected, made public, and then corrected; it would address much of the chaos surrounding the HSE; and most importantly, it would foster a spirit of transparency, accountability and good governance. Ireland needs and deserves real Freedom of Information. If there are low standards in high places, the Irish people have a right to know about it.

“As I say – undermining the Freedom of Information Act was the wrong decision. I can tell you now that when the Labour Party is returned to government, these changes will be reversed. Reinstating the Act, making it fit for purpose and true to its original function will be a cornerstone to the negotiation of any future Programme for government involving the Labour Party.”