The Government will become the "most secret and closed" administration ever, if it goes ahead with changes in the Freedom of Information Act, the Dáil was told.
National security interests and Northern Ireland files are adequately protected in the existing Freedom of Information legislation, according to Labour's finance spokeswoman, Ms Joan Burton, who condemned a new Bill to change the Act as "very retrogade".
The Government will publish new legislation within days, and details of the proposed changes will be revealed then, the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, said.
Ms Burton accused the Minister of arrogance, when he said that her points about the Act "are all excellent and she can make them again when the Bill is published".
It is expected to go through the Dáil and Seanad within weeks and become law before April.
The report of the high-level group which reviewed the operation of the original 1997 Freedom of Information Act will be published at the same time as the Bill.
The Minister declined to reveal any information about the Bill, which is expected to increase the delay in the release of Cabinet papers from five years to at least 10. The provision in the Act for the "five-year rule"' was due to commence from April 1st this year, and the current Government was the first to have been affected by it.
Ms Burton said: "In a modern state, open government and freedom of information is the best route to good government".
The existing legislation was an Act that characterised the movement of Irish society from a rather closed and backward-looking one to an international one, "which can compete with the best in the world and which is not afraid that the arrangements, deals and thinking of government and of Departments of State are subject to full scrutiny".
Mr McCreevy said he looked forward to a "rehash of this debate when the Bill is published and debated".
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