`The records will be all the poorer and there will be much less information under the 30-year rule." Thus a senior civil servant on the Freedom of Information Act, which has created enormous changes, both good and bad, in the operation of government since it came into force nearly a year ago.
The Act, sponsored by the former junior minister Eithne Fitz-Gerald, is slowly eroding the culture of secrecy which has pervaded our civil service for the last 80 years and nearly everyone believes this is a good thing. But there the agreement ends. While the Opposition, the media and interested individuals are delighted with their right to certain previously secret information, even at a charge, the Government and the bureaucrats are far from happy. Indeed when the Government and the Opposition swap places their attitudes to the Act will most likely be reversed.
Those now complaining object that previously private conversations and correspondence can be released to their political opponents, the media and the public. As a result much less business is being committed to paper, minutes are not being kept and telephone calls are replacing memos and letters.
Indeed the situation has now been reached that minutes are no longer taken at the pre-Cabinet meetings of departmental advisers. Neither are minutes kept of the frequent meetings between the Government's two programme managers, Gerry Hickey of FF and the PDs' Katherine Bulbulia. Participants now tend to make private notes for themselves as reminders of what was discussed and decided. A leading trade unionist told Quidnunc that no notes are taken when he meets civil servants for fear future disclosure could cause embarrassment.
Since the release of internal Department of Foreign Affairs correspondence last autumn, and the advantage made of it by the Opposition, Ministers and civil servants have been extra wary of what they commit to paper. Each department has a designated officer who decides what requests should be met. The individual whose records are being sought is informed later, merely as a matter of courtesy, if a request is met, according to a senior source. were being trawled through to meet a demand, a civil servant deleting his emails following a disclosure request and the public being supplied with background briefing notes on ministerial speeches. In addition to the potential embarrassment, civil servants in particular see the Act as creating a huge extra burden.