Concerns expressed by this newspaper about changes made by the Coalition Government to the Freedom of Information Act have been fully vindicated.
The imposition of new charges and the exclusion of certain Government files from the terms of the Act have, in the words of the Fine Gael leader, Mr Enda Kenny, effectively applied a tourniquet to the flow of information on the way the Government operates. There was a significant fall-off in the number of applications made under the Act when, last April, restrictions were placed on the kind of files that would be made available. The imposition of new charges, in July, accelerated that trend and applications for information have now dropped by about 50 per cent.
Freedom of information legislation is supposed to shine light into dark administrative corners; to hold politicians and public servants to account for the decisions they make and to reassure the public that the process of government is fair and impartial. But the new Act is insidious in its intent and destructive in its application. It has rolled back reforms introduced by the Rainbow Government in 1997 which were designed to ensure that such economic and political scandals as were identified by the Beef Tribunal could not easily recur.
The original Act specifically provided for the withholding of information where the public interest might suffer damage. Similar protection was provided where Government policy, particularly in relation to the North and international and security affairs, might be subverted. Notwithstanding those safeguards, the present Government decided to bring the shutters down on how it conducts its business. Objections by the former Ombudsman and Information Commissioner, Mr Kevin Murphy, were ignored, as were appeals for changes to be made to the legislation by the Government-controlled Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance and the Public Service.
In the Dáil, last week, the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, engaged in a sad pretence when he said that, under the new Act, "practically everything that is looked for from Departments comes out". The unfortunate reality is that the Department of Finance, which produced the legislation, responded to 85 per cent fewer applications than in a similar period last year. The new Ombudsman and Information Commissioner, Ms Emily O'Reilly, has announced that her office will review the effect of charges on the number of applications for information. But she is not in a position to question the Act itself, which blanks out the way Ministers and the Government conduct business and shrouds the deliberations of government advisory bodies in secrecy. Mr Kenny has offered to change that situation, if elected to government.