Irish Examiner view: A vital cog deliberately undermined

Freedom of Information Act

John Devitt, chief executive of Transparency International Ireland.

It is hardly surprising, in a country where the parliament discussed locking adoption records away for 75 years until everyone involved in that scandal was with O’Leary in the grave, that a modest concession to accountability has been described as unfit for purpose. We may have enacted legislation to facilitate access to information but our old, instinctive cowering from the light of exposure endures.

There are few Western countries where official secrecy is such a misused sanctuary. Civic campaigners have expressed growing concern around the effectiveness of our Freedom of Information (FoI) legislation. Its essential role in underpinning faith in our public affairs, they suggest, has been deliberately diluted.

In a Sinn Féin survey, 76% ranked the system as “performing poorly”, while 84% suggested that access to FoI documents has been curtailed. Almost three-quarters (71%) believe that public institutions need extra resources to respond more efficiently to FoI requests.

 It is very difficult, however, not to suspect that a shift in culture is at least as important, especially as there is an element of self-regulation, maybe self-exposure, in the process 

Why, after all, would a department offer information that shows it in a poor light?

The findings of the survey, though modest in its sweep as it interviewed only 25 individuals, were echoed by Transparency Ireland (TI). “The common thread... is that people are unable to gain access to information,” said TI chief executive John Devitt. 

He pointed to an irony when he said that some citizens use protected disclosure options in part because FoI requests do not succeed. One piece of legislation is being used to overcome the limitations of another, hardly the intention of those who enacted it — or the best way to serve the interests of those who rely on the intended protections.

Those concerns were echoed by Right to Know campaigner Ken Foxe: “There has been no recognition of this by government... We have public bodies failing to meet their obligations time and time again, the same organisations year after year.”

It is unlikely that this issue will bring crowds on to the streets — not even the 300 or so who marched in Cork’s anti-lockdown protest on Saturday — but that is a consequence of this contrived process. A lack of information about a process or institution makes it hard to invest the kind of faith needed to challenge or defend either. Why would anyone champion a process that shrouds itself in silence and secrecy? This serves only one set of interests and continually undermines society.

When the inevitable pandemic inquiries begin, there will be shocking revelations. Maybe not that the gardaí invented 2m drink-driving tests or that blue-riband stockbrokers behaved like backstreet hucksters. Maybe not that elements of our vaccination programme were a smash-and-grab or that low-pay sectors were the source of multiple infections.

Before these revelations test the national blood pressure, we might ask ourselves if these events, or many more like them, would have occurred if we had a sharp, relentless, undeniable way of securing the details of how this country is really run. Or maybe we’re happy being a mushroom?