FOIs – Page 11 – TheStory.ie

1989 US Dublin Embassy cables

On Saturday and today the Irish Times published a series of stories, by me, Stephen Collins, Miriam Lord, Dan Keenan and Steven Carroll based on cables this blog obtained under US FOIA legislation. Below are the documents on which the story was based – 1989 State Department documents related to Charles Haughey most of which come from US Embassy Dublin, but some of which come from other embassies.

US dismissive about summit between Haughey and Gorbachev
Cables express surprise at excitement over first Irish-Soviet summit
“Gorbomania” has swept the country
US urged Haughey to take tough line with Nicaraguan president Ortega
Key Irish-American congressman got red-carpet welcome for work on extra visas
Donnelly warned of possible erosion of support for the International Fund for Ireland
‘I hope when you see Gorbachev at Shannon you will urge him to support efforts to bring peace to the region’
‘I very much appreciated our exchange of views’
Serious illness made Haughey look for place in ‘history’
Haughey seen by US as deftly negotiating PD coalition in 1989
Haughey sought ‘preferential treatment’ for Ireland from US on tax
Ambassador’s view of leading Irish figures
Cables provide a remarkable insight into a dramatic year in Irish politics
Access to foreign state papers only real way to look at Ireland’s sealed years of 1984-1998

Printing costs of Oireachtas members

Thanks to Catherine Halloran of the Daily Star for sharing the results of this FOI with us. Catherine asked for the number of Christmas cards printed by the Oireachtas printing presses for each TD and Senator, broken down on a individual basic for each TD and Senator and a full breakdown of printing costs in 2012, broken down for each TD and Senator. A total €276,133.96 was spent on printing facilities for members. Here are details of the release:

The top 20 Members:

Member Amount
Richard Bruton € 18,935.17
Robert Dowds € 11,694.80
Regina Doherty € 9,180.03
Richard Boyd Barrett € 6,865.95
Mary Mitchell OConnor € 6,114.87
Lucinda Creighton € 4,831.80
Alan Farrell € 4,817.51
Philip Hogan € 4,794.51
Sandra McLellan € 4,625.99
Micheal Martin € 4,584.02
Patrick ODonovan € 4,331.31
Niall Collins € 4,070.34
Derek Keating € 3,939.11
Robert Troy € 3,866.18
Martin Conway € 3,855.58
Mark Daly € 3,563.76
Martin Heydon € 3,368.14
Patrick Nulty € 3,304.75
Frances Fitzgerald € 3,284.32
Marcella Corcoran Kennedy € 3,187.62

And the full results:

Data

This is the breakdown by party membership:

777 days and waiting … OFMDFM in no hurry to answer FOIs

Northern Ireland’s Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister (OFMDFM) record on Freedom of Information turns out to be a lot worse than the public have been aware of – with one request still unanswered after 777 days.

The Department hit the headlines last July when a requester was made wait 320 days for a reply. But figures just disclosed under FOI show the real picture is far worse, with five requests from 2011 still without a proper response and a further three which went without a reply for over two years.

The longest outstanding request is one from March 2011, a media enquiry about ‘Expenditure for Account Codes 2009/10’, which so far is lying unanswered for 26 months – a whopping total of 777 days. Another media enquiry, on credit card expenditure, is waiting for a response since July 2011 (674 days). A public request for titles of departmental files should have been answered 638 days ago, and media requests about ‘Correspondence between First Minister & named individual’ (594 days) and ministerial drivers (586 days) are also unanswered.

Among the ten which took more than a year – mostly answered within the last few weeks – were ones on Appointment of Consultant / NI Water Review Team (763 days), NI Travel Expenses (721 days), Properties outside Northern Ireland (742 days), and Ministerial Briefs (638 days). There were also three requests about Special Advisors, two of which were from a public representative.

In total, there were 97 requests in 2011 alone which were not answered in time. There is of course no guarantee that the responses, once provided, were adequate. Yet some of these ought in principle have been easy to respond to quickly, even with a refusal.

These new revelations will increase concerns that the Department, which was the subject of one fifth of all complaints to the Information Commissioner about Northern Ireland government departments, and which has been monitored by the Commissioner’s Office over its poor performance in responding, is failing to take Freedom of Information seriously.

Speaking to the Northern Ireland Assembly last year, Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness insisted that his department ‘compares favourably with that of other jurisdictions’. With the Commissioner’s monitoring report due any day now, transparency advocates will be watching with great concern to see whether the OFMDFM shows any signs of a real commitment to change.

Most of this information is available in the Department’s response to a Freedom of Information request at WhatDoTheyKnow.com.

Gamekeepers turned poachers

Here are some internal Dept of Finance documents on the move of a senior civil servant from the Department of Finance to Bank of Ireland.

Michael Torpey, who was employed on a salary of €200,000-plus annually, was transferred to the NTMA for three months and told not to work in his area of expertise – as part of a ‘cooling off period’.

He was asked not to return to his desk after Christmas because he had agreed to take a job in Bank of Ireland and was instead dispatched to the National Treasury Management Agency where, despite being an expert in banking, he was forbidden from working on any matter relating to it. Mr Torpey had been a key figure in the Department of Finance’s work on the restructuring of banks before being poached by Bank of Ireland late last year. He was due to begin work at the bank this month.

Once he announced his intention to leave his job, the Government insisted on a three-month ‘cooling off period’ funded by the taxpayer, according to documents released under Freedom of Information legislation. Mr Torpey’s move to Bank of Ireland caused concern in the Department of Finance, where there were issues raised over a possible conflict of interest.

Sinn Fein’s Pearse Doherty has raised questions over the move pointing out that Fine Gael had committed itself to a two-year cooling off period for senior civil servants moving to the private sector. He explained: ‘Michael Torpey – and I don’t want to cast aspersions on him personally – as head of state shareholder management unit had very sensitive information on all of the banks and now he has a senior appointment with Bank of Ireland.

“He has information on AIB – they are a direct competitor. And now to take up an executive position in a rival bank leads to all sorts of problems and all sorts of issues.”

The Department of Finance had said Mr Torpey would be subject to the provisions of the Official Secrets Act. But as Doherty said: “There is no “Men in Black” style machine to wipe his memory and say forget everything you knew.”

Elaine Byrne has also been looking at this area and published an interesting report on the increasingly frequent nature of such moves.

Documents obtained:

Micheal Martin's letter to Mario Draghi

Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin wrote to ECB president Mario Draghi in January asking for debt relief on the Anglo promissory notes. In a letter released to thestory.ie from the ECB, Martin stressed the importance of Ireland obtaining a deal on the debt, stating:

The people of Ireland fully understand the legal constraints faced by you as President of the European Central Bank in relation to monetary financing of government. In a more flexible system most or all of this debt should simply be absorbed permanently. However, there is no clear legal or economic impediment to a restructuring of the notes on such a basis as to significantly reduce their impact. A longer term and lower cost would make a major contribution to Ireland’s recovery.

Mr President, there are many issues concerning Europe and recovery which divide parties in our country — this is not one of them. You can be assured that the arguments which you hear from Ireland are backed by a broad and deep consensus.

The ECB refused access to other documents relating to the IBRC bill on a number of grounds including:

…some of the documents that you requested contain internal and preparatory views that are also protected under Article 4(3) of Decision (a document containing opinions for internal use as part of deliberations and preliminary consultations within the ECB or with NCBS). The ECB considers that disclosing these documents would undermine the possibility for ECB staff to freely submit uncensored advice to the ECB’s decision-making bodies and that it would thus limit the ECB’s “space to think”. It is therefore in the public interest to protect internal consultations and deliberations. Disclosing the documents would also undermine the possibility of an effective, informal and confidential exchange of views with the Central Bank of Ireland, which is part of the Eurosystem. On the basis of the content of these documents, the ECB notes that there is no overriding public interest that could justify their disclosure, and it is not possible to grant partial access to them without undermining the interest protected.

Full documents:

FOI implementation review panel

Last month we were asked by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to participate in a review of the implementation of FOI (NOT related to the legislation, but rather to how the legislation is implemented).

We agreed, in the view that being part of a process of review is better than not – and there is a need for the views of readers and supporters of TheStory.ie to be represented.

Other participants in the review include Tom Felle from the University of Limerick, Colm Keena from the Irish Times, Maeve McDonagh from UCC (for whom I have given guest FOI related lectures, pro bono, to UCC students), Nuala Haughey from Transparency International Ireland, Seamus Dooley from the NUJ, Peter Feeney from RTE, Stephen Rafferty from the Office of the Information Commissioner (OIC), former secretary general of the Department of Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs Gerry Kearney and some FOI managers from the Department including William Beausang, Ronan Fox, Jacinta O’Meara and Ron O’Connor.

As always we will publish details of meetings that TheStory.ie is involved in, included the date, time, duration, purpose and subject matter of the discussions. Previous access to information advocacy meetings are available in this spreadsheet.

We arrange and attend meetings in our spare time, with the sole motivation of serving the public interest for access to information rights. Of course, we *could* be in the pub instead. But we’d rather be acting on your behalf. We often do go to the pub afterwards though. Usually it’s Gavin who is in these meetings.

In somewhat unrelated news we sent an FOI to the same department seeking details of how FOI is implemented over the past two years, details of expenditure by the Department, the diary of the Secretary General of the Department Robert Watt, and other matters. This information was received on April 3 and in paper format. We will publish it as soon as possible, though the information obtained will help inform our views on how FOI policy is handled by public bodies.

McCreevy 1999 Cabinet documents

Mary Minihan in the Irish Times has recently been writing about Cabinet documents she obtained under Section 19 of the FOI Act. This little-used provision allows citizens to obtain Cabinet level documents and communications after 10 years has passed. She wrote the stories listed below and has been kind enough to share the documents involved with TheStory.ie.

McCreevy warned in 2000 of threat to economy if ‘boom is let rip’
Papers reveal political wrangling behind State’s boom-time giveaway budget
McCreevy had warned of public-private tensions

Decisions, Decisions

Thestory.ie would like to welcome a guest post from Rodney Breen of foireland.blogspot.ie

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There’s theory, and then there’s reality. In 2004, I was working for a British university, preparing the staff for the Freedom of Information Act due to come into effect on the following 1st January. One question people regularly asked was this: how much do we have to reveal about our contracts? Value for money seemed to require maximum disclosure. But how would our commercial relationships survive if we told the public anything they wanted to know?

The Lord Chancellor’s office, which introduced the new Law, provided guidance on how they thought it should work. So did the Information Commissioner, who would monitor its operation. The problem was, it was all theoretical. What we needed to know was how it would be interpreted in a real case.

Eventually, somebody appealed to the Information Commissioner for a decision. The Tate Gallery had commissioned an artist to produce a piece of work. Someone asked how much it had cost; the Gallery refused, saying it would damage their ability to negotiate contracts. The Commissioner looked at the evidence and concluded it would not. We had our answer: total amounts of contracts, at least, should be public.

For the professional FOI officer, and for the serious requester, Decision Notices are a hugely important resource. They show how the law is interpreted in real life cases. It’s the difference between looking at a car in the brochure and taking it for a spin. The UK Information Commissioner publishes all decisions shortly after they are completed. So does the Scottish Commissioner, who also publishes a list of cases currently under review.

When I began looking at how Freedom of Information works in Ireland, one of the first things I did was look for decision notices. To my astonishment, there were very few: the Irish Information Commissioner publishes only a selection of decisions. With fewer appeals because of the high fees, the result is a much smaller base of information to draw on. The Scottish Commissioner has published 1,568 decisions in just over eight years; in Ireland, after fifteen years, we have just 435.

I contacted the Commissioner’s Office to ask why. It took some time to get a reply:

Decisions are published on the website on a quarterly basis. The reason being that most decisions are category 1 and usually do not contain anything of significant value. At the end of each quarter the senior investigator will review all decisions made within the time period and decide which ones to publish. All Category 2 and 3 decisions are published. … The vast majority of decisions are Category 1. No Category 3 decisions were made in 2011, or 2012 thus far.

I pressed them to explain what the difference was between Categories 1, 2 and 3. Finally, I got an answer:

An internal system of rating decisions and identifying key decisions has operated in OIC for a number of years.

3 rating is a key decision which is identified as having high value and interest because it sets an important precedent, or clarification of the Commissioner’s stance on a provision of the Act, and/or breaks new ground.

2 rating is a decision of importance because of legal research carried out, or an issue discussed, which had not received in-depth treatment heretofore, or involving examination of records having significant public interest whilst not necessarily departing from the Commissioner’s published position on the issues arising.

1 (the majority of decisions) rating is a decision which broadly follows the Commissioner’s previous findings on the exemption(s) at issue and which is of interest primarily to the parties involved.

To me, this seems completely wrong.

It seems to be entirely down to the Commissioner’s staff to decide whether they are of interest. How can they tell? The experience of Freedom of Information tells us that what public bodies think are of interest is often very different from what people actually want to know.

It is absolutely extraordinary that an organization devoted to transparency seems so uninterested in disclosing its own workings. If we can’t see their decisions, can we be confident they are getting it right? Notices allow us to see that the Commissioner works in a fair and rational manner.

Decisions that don’t set a precedent can be just as important as those that do. If public bodies make the same mistakes, we may never know because the decisions won’t be published. Seeing the full range of decisions gives us a picture of how they are performing, and which ones perform best.

We need to see all the decisions made, on our behalf, by the Commissioner. Uploading all the unpublished ones could hardly take more than a couple of days. They should be published immediately and routinely. We also need them as PDFs, so they can be easily downloaded and studied.

I will be writing to the Information Commissioner shortly to ask for all decisions to be published, as a matter of urgency, and for all future decisions to be published as a matter of urgency. We’ll let you know how we get on.

Submission to Oireachtas Committee re FOI Amendment

Fred Logue and myself have put together a submission, sent today, to the Oireachtas Committee on Finance and Public Expenditure & Reform on behalf of thestory.ie (and, I believe, our readers!).

Access to information is important y’know.

Who ran up a €1,600 bill ringing a single mobile number in Pakistan from the Oireachtas?

This story is by Ken Foxe and based on a recent story in the Mail on Sunday: Documents obtained under FOI are below.

A politican is suspected to have run up a bill of more than €1,600 calling a single mobile phone number in Pakistan, an unpublished Oireachtas memo has claimed.

Officials in Leinster House’s telecoms unit estimated that calls to a ‘very small number’ of foreign numbers were costing the taxpayer at least €14,000 per year.

Other costs included an estimated €1,249 bill for calling a mobile in Australia, €581 to a mobile in Lithuania, €381 to a Maltese mobile, €370 to a UK mobile, €366 to a South African landline and €331 to a landline in Cyprus. The officials admitted they were powerless to establish whether the expensive calls – made in 2010 – were legitimate as they don’t track who TDs and Senators call on their taxpayer-funded phones.

But the memo stated it was ‘difficult to imagine’ how they could be genuine. ‘It is difficult to imagine what Oireachtas business would give rise to calls costing €1,621 to a single Pakistani mobile phone number, and it would be irresponsible to consider the possibility that such calls might have been an unintended/improper use of the service provided. Without availabe data it is not possible to make any judgement on the matter.’

The discoveries were made after a report was commissioned following the ‘Ring of Kerry’ controversy in which a €2,639 bill was run up dialling a premium phone line to vote for Michael Healy-Rae, who was a contestant in the Celebrities Go Wild TV show.

That led directly to a ban on calls to premium rate numbers from all Oireachtas phones and immediately eliminated any potential for abuse. These unpublished memos, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, were prepared internally but never sent forward for consideration by spending watchdogs.

The Oireachtas has confirmed they are now planning a review of telephone services to look at the risk ‘of inappropriate use, or excessively expensive use of telecoms facilities. However, tackling the problem of politician’s personal phone bills has proven difficult because of the cloak of secrecy that surrounds them.

The Oireachtas operates a screening process for calls and if civil servants, and other similar staff, run up excessive bills – the costs are immediately red-flagged. But this screening does not apply to TDs or Senators, which means inappropriate use of phone facilities can never be investigated.

There is a proviso on the above figures in that they are based on seven months of usage, with a twelve-month figure extrapolated from the January to end July cost.

Original documents: