Records ‘less accessible than 30 years ago’

PUBLIC records are less accessible than prior to the 1997 Freedom of Public Information (FoI) Act, a conference at the University of Limerick heard yesterday.

One speaker predicted when current Government records are opened in 30 years time they will not accurately reflect the decision-making process due to alterations and editing at Government and civil servant levels.

The conference titled Democracy and the Right to Know was held by UL’s Department of Politics and Public Administration.

Fine Gael justice spokesman Charlie Flanagan said the FoI had regressed and been replaced with a culture of secrecy as a result of amendments in 2003.

He said: “We once had a situation where you had hundreds of successful requests and that is now down to a trickle. Instead of progressing it from 1997, what the Government has done is regress it back to pre-1997.”

The changes enacted in 2003 need to be repealed, he said.

“We should even go further and include departments such as the Department of Justice and the Garda Síochána, which were not included in 1997 on the basis that these were areas involving the security of the State,” he said.

Mr Flanagan said it is virtually impossible to get information on a whole range of issues in the public arena.

“Lack of accountability,” he said, “goes to the heart of the democratic process.”

Irish Examiner business editor, Conor Keane said the FoI was totally unfair to journalists.

If a mistake is made in a file and that information is given to a journalist and published, the individual or organisation wrongly identified under the FoI Act can sue the journalist and the media outlet that publishes it in good faith.

However, Mr Keane said the State agency responsible for the inaccuracy has total indemnity under the act. “There is a lacuna there in the law.”

Irish Times Journalist Mark Hennessy said departments no longer have true files due to ministerial and civil servant post-it amendments.

Mr Hennessy said: “So 30 years from now in 2038 the files which will be published will not be as informative as the ones that came out from 1977.”

He accused some media of appalling use of FoIs with a concentration by tabloids on ministerial and civil servant expenses.

This he said was short sighted and developed a well of resentment in Government.

Labour’s deputy leader Joan Burton said the act her party had brought in 1997 had been stripped away. With the 2003 amendments access to areas of active government were closed off.

The 2003 changes also saw the introduction of a regime of charges which deterred people from putting in FoI requests.

Ms Burton said TDs and the media were no longer able, through the FoI, to get behind what was wrong in relation to large volumes of public spending.