Submission by Dr Maeve McDonagh, Dean of Law, UCC: Proposed changes to the Cabinet records exemption in the Government's Bill were criticised by Dr Maeve McDonagh, Dean of the Faculty of Law, in a submission to the committee.
In particular, she said, the suggestion that the definition of government be extended to include working groups set up "to develop further or resolve some particularly complex issue on the Cabinet agenda or under consideration at a Cabinet meeting" extended the scope of the exemption much too far.
Such groups, she added, might be made up of officials or special advisers and might not contain a single minister.
Dr McDonagh said that the introduction of an upfront fee was justified by the review group on the grounds that the present arrangements had not worked in practice, with fees being charged in only a small proportion of cases and that international practice favoured the use of upfront fees.
She added that the FoI provided for the charging of fees and it was the responsibility of the public bodies concerned to enforce the current fee arrangements, including the power to request the payment of a deposit.
"The fact that fees are only charged in a small proportion of cases is due to a failure on the part of public bodies to use the powers they have, rather than to the lack of an enforceable charging regime in the Act."
Ms McDonagh said there was no fee in the UK, New Zealand or the US. In the case of Canada and Australia, both of which did not charge application fees, the amounts charged in respect of the other elements of the charging regime, such as search and retrieval, was a fraction of what could be charged under the Irish Act.
It was significant, she added, that the review group did not recommend a fee for an appeal against refusals to grant access to records. "This is in line with the conclusion of the Canadian review body that the introduction of such fees would not be recommended on the ground that it would deter legitimate complainants."
