Civil servants defend FoI recommendations

Two of the five senior civil servants who recommended sweeping restrictions to the Freedom of Information Act have defended their stance before the Dáil's Finance and Public Service Committee.

Under questioning from Fine Gael's Richard Bruton, Paul Herron, the secretary general of the Department of Enterprise, said he and his colleagues were concerned that ministers would be too careful about what they said if they knew that the public would have access to the comments.

Mr Herron's counterpart at the Department of Transport, Julie O'Neill, claimed the release of information could impact on ministerial behaviour.

Information Commissioner Kevin Murphy is due to answer questions before the committee later today.