AMENDMENTS TO Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation in 2003 have resulted in a "collapse" in the number of information inquiries, a conference marking the 10th anniversary of the Act has heard.
Introduced in 1997, FOI was initially considered a success, opening up Irish bureaucracy and uncovering scandals such as the nursing home crisis, the cost of storing electronic voting machines and the reluctance of civil servants to avail of decentralisation opportunities despite official claims to the contrary.
Moreover, it has been used to ridicule the Government on occasions, such as the information that emerged regarding Taoiseach Bertie Ahern's make-up bills and the cost of chocolates for officials travelling on the Government jet.
The 2003 amendment to the FOI legislation curtailed information Government departments were required to release under the Act and also led to the introduction of fees.
Yesterday, the department of politics and public administration at the University of Limerick held a conference on the theme Democracy and the Right to Know, to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the Freedom of Information Act.
Deputy leader of the Labour Party, Joan Burton, described the amendments to the Act in 2003 as a "closedown of information".
"Because of the restriction of FOI, it has been almost impossible in terms of TDs or the media to get behind what has actually gone wrong in relation to large volumes of public spending," she said. "As regards providing up-to- the-minute scrutiny of what Government is doing in terms of decision-making and public money, it has pretty much closed down. The evidence of that is clear in the collapse of the number of FOI requests," Ms Burton added.
According to Fine Gael's justice spokesman Charlie Flanagan, the amendments to the Act have resulted in a reintroduction of the culture of secrecy.
"There is very much a lack of openness and a reintroduction of a culture of secrecy. I refer in particular to the amendment Act in 2003, which has resulted in far less requests now being successfully garnered," he said. "There is little more than a trickle of requests now and the fees are also another aspect," he added.