Thanks to access-info for this one:
All that is needed for An Garda Síochána to come under FOI is the signature of Finance Minister Brian Lenihan, and some regulations to be implemented. Then we can take our place among such nations as Moldova, Georgia and Azerbaijan as a country that allows citizens to request information from their police force. The Gardai must be brought under FOI as a matter of urgency.
Interesting yarn in Media Guardian section on police forces and hacks and how reporters are relying on the police for more and more information…http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/dec/07/crime-reporting-newspapers-research
But the garda have to protect the little people from hurting themselves with all the dangerous information they have on the people-they-know-are-committing-crimes-but-just-can’t-prove-it.
I don’t know much about this Gavin but from what I know, the Garda Síochána is unusual as an entity in that it has no legal personality. This means, for instance, that the Gardaí can’t be sued. As I say, I don’t know, but I wonder if this has implications for FOI? My impression is that the force is in law essentially part of the Department of Justice.
I can’t read the key to the diagram clearly but from what I can glean by squinting, it appears to have categories of ‘covered by FOIA’ and ‘Included in FOIA’ – if my squint-aided reading is correct, what is the difference between the two?
Covered by FOI means the country has an FOI system and the police is automatically part of that. “Included” means the police force is included by their FOI system as an entity onto itself (as opposed to as part of a Justice department or something).
I may be wrong, Gav has the skinny.