Transparency has never been a hallmark of this Government

Lucinda Creighton (Irish Examiner, November 7) should be reminded that when the journalist Gavin Sheridan and his colleagues first began the process of requesting copies of the correspondence between Ireland and the European Central Bank (ECB) it wasn’t only the ECB who blocked them every step of the way until the matter was escalated to the European Ombudsman.

The Department of Finance, headed since 2011 by her former party colleague Michael Noonan, also blocked every attempt at transparency too. The Finance Department could have released the letters years ago in the same way that the equivalent letters sent to Portugal and Spain were released, not by the ECB but by the relevant departments in those countries.

Indeed Noonan himself commented before that the contents of the letters wouldn’t shock anyone, meaning he had read them, but he still blocked all efforts to have his department release them.

Of course Noonan is a man of the 1970s and has form in being a block to reform, like when he fought all efforts at transparency and accountability at the Department of Health when he was a minister there fighting the late Mrs McCole, literally to the death.

Indeed Ms Creighton is very selective herself when she comments about transparency. Try getting a reply from her as to why she refuses to publish receipts to verify the amount she claims in expenses matches the expenses she incurs or where her Reform Alliance get their money from.

Desmond FitzGerald

Canary Wharf

London

England