Howlin defiant on Freedom of Information Bill

Brendan Howlin defied media organisations and transparency advocates by pressing ahead with a controversial amendment to the new Freedom of Information Bill.

The public expenditure minister said the measure, which will allow public bodies to split up requests that are deemed to cover different topics, was needed to stop people cramming “manifestly separate” questions into a single request.

He appeared before the Dáil subcommittee on public expenditure yesterday and said the controversy had been surprising because newspapers had been slow to cover his previous developments in terms of the bill. He said, if there was to be a principle of an up-front fee for freedom of information requests, it would be undermined if people could ask many different questions for the one €15 cost.