Tag: FOI

The FOI process – a note of praise

It isn’t often here at thestory.ie that we feel in a position to praise a government body for how they handle an FOI request.

All too often there’s something odd about the search and retrieval fee, or the request comes in right at the end (or after) the 20 day period by which requests should be replied to. Or you ask for something in digital format and you get hundreds of printed pages in the post, sent by registered mail (crazily swallowing up a large portion of the €15 fee you paid in the first place). Or the FOI officer misapplies an exemption, or misinterprets their responsibilities, fails to apply a public interest test, fails to give a schedule of records or… I could go on.

Too often a system that’s supposed to be about transparency and openness, active citzenship, open government and all that good stuff, ends up becoming adversarial – a battle of wills between a requester and an administration that all too often sees access to information as a chore rather than as something that benefits us all, citizens and public bodies alike.

So credit where it’s due.

I sent a request two weeks ago to the Department of the Environment. To my astonishment I received two elements of my request back long before the working 20 days were up (This is how it’s supposed to work, often there seems to be sit-out-the-20-days policy, regardless of whether the information is ready). In the three years I’ve been doing FOIs, this is a rare event.

Not alone that, I got it all digitally by email, as requested, including a schedule of records and what exemptions were applied. This was quickly followed by the next element of the request from a different division, with similar results. A third element of the request was then carefully handled in terms of seeking to explain a difficulty with a portion of my request and suggesting an alternative path.

This is how FOI is supposed to work. If there were an FOI gold star for DECLG, I’d give it.

So to the FOI officers, including Mary Boothman and Noel Prunty, and all the good people at the Department of the Environment – cheers! 🙂

Minister for Environment diary 2012

Part of an ongoing process. This is the appointments diary of Environment Minister Phil Hogan from 2012. Some entries were deleted as they related to Parliamentary matters (s.22) and personal information of parties other than the requester (s.28)



Previously:

Minister for Environment Diary 2011
Minister for Environment Diary 2010
Minister for Environment Diary 2009
Minister for Environment Diary 1998

Minister for Environment diary 2011

Part of an ongoing process. This is the appointments diary of Environment Minister Phil Hogan from when he became Minister in March 2011 to December 2011. Some entries were deleted as they related to Parliamentary matters (s.22) and personal information of parties other than the requester (s.28)



Government reneges on FOI promises

Freedom of information is central to our modern concept of a functioning democracy. Charging a fee for freedom of information flies in the face of that concept and is outrageous.

So said current Social Protection Minister Joan Burton back in 2003. I couldn’t agree more. But now the government of which she is a part is reneging on promises to restore the FOI Act to pre the 2003 amendment.

Readers will recall that back in March 2011 I blogged about the programme for government which committed the new government to the following reforms:

We will legislate to restore the Freedom of Information Act to what it was before it was undermined by the outgoing Government, and we will extend its remit to other public bodies including the administrative side of the Garda Síochána, subject to security exceptions.

We will extend Freedom of Information, and the Ombudsman Act, to ensure that all statutory bodies, and all bodies significantly funded from the public purse, are covered.

At the time I expressed some doubt, adding that it is only worth believing what politicians do, not what they say.

Last month I returned to the question, and asked why, if the government was so committed to reform, had they not simply got rid of the fees and added more bodies using Ministerial Orders rather than an amendment (or do one first and then the other).

Well we seem to have our answer. My doubts and cynicism were proven correct. The government won’t be restoring the FOI Act to what it was before. Politicians and broken promises, who’d have thought?

We learned yesterday that the punitive €15 for requests is to remain, the internal review will decline to €30 from €75 and appeals to the Information Commissioner will decline from €150 to €50. These are all punitive charges and none should exist, but worst of all is the €15, which acts as a barrier to putting requests in in the first instance. It leaves Irish citizens in the rather ridiculous position of being able to request information from the UK for free (they don’t charge), despite us not being citizens of that country, but in our country we must pay for our own information.

And just to refresh our memories, what exactly have our politicians been saying about this FOI reform since the inception of the new government:

Brendan Howlin, March 15 2011:

We will restore freedom of information provisions

Brendan Howlin, March 31, 2011

We will restore the Freedom of Information Act to what it was before it was filleted by the previous Government, and we will extend it to other bodies substantially funded by the public purse

Brendan Howlin, September 22, 2011

…an amendment to the Freedom of Information Act to restore the position that existed prior to the enactment of recent changes

Brendan Howlin, April 19 2012

A freedom of information (amendment) Bill will also be introduced this year. I have circulated my initial thoughts on that Bill to the Government. My objective is to undo the harm done by the Freedom of Information (Amendment) Act 2003

Brendan Howlin, June 6 2012

The restoration and extension of Freedom of Information (FOI) aims, in line with the Programme for Government commitment, to reverse the substantive restrictions to FOI introduced in 2003 and to extend FOI to all public bodies

Enda Kenny, March 15 2011

We will legislate to restore the previous position in regard to the Freedom of Information Act and we will extend the remit of that Act and of the Ombudsman Act

Enda Kenny, September 14, 2011

That is what the Freedom of Information Act was introduced for by the Fine Gael-Labour Government in previous years. We will make changes to it in due course because the Deputy’s crowd tried to restrict it even further.

Or let’s go back a little further. Back in 2003 Enda Kenny said the following in relation to the impending FOI amendment:

“There has been no consultation with those who use the Act; 23% of FOI requests come from journalists bu the NUJ has not been consulted.”

Sounds familiar. Or in February 2003:

“Fine Gael will commit itself, when in Government, to restoring the position to that set out in the 1997 Act”

And going back to Joan Burton in 2003:

“International evidence clearly demonstrates that such charges are a deterrent to public access to government documents”

The current Information Commissioner, who appears to have gone along with the proposal to keep the €15 fee, said in 2003 that the fees would be a “massive disincentive” to members of the public. She said:

“these recent developments may have long-term negative effects for accountability”

In the UK, the Commons just recently completed a review of their FOI Act, and rejected the notion of imposing fees saying that the drawbacks of fees outweigh the benefits.

I will say this: the €15 punitive fee must be removed. To all the readers of this blog, politicians, civil servants and journalists included, this fee must be removed. And if the government refuses to remove it, we must force them to remove it.

NAMA case first day

The Irish Times reports today on the stuff that happened in the High Court yesterday (though references to Freedom of Information are confusing, the case is not concerned with the FOI Act, but is about access to information generally).

The case will get underway again this morning but I wanted to make a couple of observations on what happened yesterday.

First, Brian Murray SC (representing NAMA) repeatedly emphasised that if my and the Commissioner’s reading of the legislation was correct, it would have (in suitably dark tones) bring “a whole swathe” of bodies under the Access to Information on the Environment (AIE) regime. He even listed bodies “like the Central Bank” which could be subject to such onerous requests. (The Central Bank is in fact already under the AIE regime), or, horror of horrors, bodies in the semi-State sector (CIE, Bord Gais and the ESB are already in fact covered by the AIE regime) or even the DPP (which may fall under the judicial bodies exemption), but even if it did, imagine a public body like the DPP having to answer AIE requests? Terrible stuff.

Much of the argument centered on what “includes” or “ambiguous” means and how the legislation should be interpreted. Niamh Hyland, for the Commissioner, used mine and Fred’s logical construction that public authority means X and includes Y, where X is the list of bodies in a) to c) and Y is the list of bodies in (i) to (vii) and that the legislation should be interpreted as the Commissioner outlined in her decision.

Department of Environment FOI logs 2005 to 2012

The Department of the Environment is one of the few to pro-actively publish their FOI logs, and I am in the habit of collating them into one spreadsheet for ease of reference. People new to FOI often ask what they should ask for, logs are often a great way of discovering the types of things people ask for. Here is the FOI log of the Department from late 2004 to mid 2012:

Download as spreadsheet (File -> Download as)

NAMA and AIE (update)

As no judges were available on May 17 or 18 last, the case of NAMA vs The Office of the Commissioner for Environmental Information was put back to July 24 (tomorrow). Hopefully it will finally be heard. It’s only 2 years and five months since I put in my requests for information. The Commissioner found in my favour in September 2011, and NAMA appealed her decision to the High Court.

The case to some degree hinges on what “and includes” means in Irish law, and a judgment in favour of the Commissioner would have a pretty large affect on the access to information regime in Ireland.

Such a decision would provide legal clarity for all requesters of environmental information, decisively bringing all State-owned companies (including all port companies and Anglo Irish Bank), all bodies where boards are appointed by Ministers, all companies where board members are appointed by a Minister and all Ministers themselves under the Access to Information on the Environment (AIE) regime.

I will tweet any updates on my Twitter account @gavinsblog.

Oireachtas contract with Pi Communications

In 2011 Northern Ireland firm Pi Communications replaced Windmill as the company in charge of the management, operation and maintenance of the television facilities and digital recording systems in the Houses of the Oireachtas. TheStory.ie has obtained a copy of the contract:



Department of Finance expenditure 2008 to 2011

Following an FOI request I obtained Department of Finance expenditure for 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011. The data reveals spending of €99,698,862.33 in 15,360 rows. The largest single outgoings were to charities such as the Rehab Group and Gael Linn using lottery money. The Exchequer receives lottery monies directly from An Post National Lottery Company Limited – the Department then disburses the funds to other Departments or holds on to some of the money itself.

If you’re wondering where all the money paid out to advisers like Merrill Lynch and Rothschild is, that money was paid through the NTMA. The top single (not pivoted) outgoings over the four years were:

Amount Account Remarks Purchase Order Detail Company
€ 5,644,928.91 Charitable Lotteries Scheme, Rehab Group 4477
€ 5,625,488.26 Charitable Lotteries Scheme, Rehab Group 4477
€ 5,185,163.72 Charitable Lotteries Scheme, Rehab Group 4477
€ 2,000,000.00 ESRI One off payment, Econ. & Social Research Inst.(ESRI) 1284
€ 1,230,000.00 April – July 09 Grant-in-Aid, Institute of Public Administration 1,105
€ 1,180,005.00 Current Expenditure,Capital Expenditure, SEUPB Peace 3778
€ 1,154,140.00 current drawdown,capital drawdown, SEUPB Peace 3778
€ 964,995.00 PEACE II Drawdown May 2008,PEACE II Drawdown May 2008, SEUPB Peace 3778
€ 925,000.00 Jan – March Grand in Aid, Institute of Public Administration 1,105
€ 925,000.00 Grant-in-Aid Aug – Oct 09, Institute of Public Administration 1,105
€ 885,000.00 current expenditure,capital expenditure, SEUPB Peace 3778
€ 850,000.00 Grant-in-Aid (Jan – March), Institute of Public Administration 1,105
€ 850,000.00 Grant-In-Aid April – June, Institute of Public Administration 1,105
€ 850,000.00 Grant-in-aid July – Sept 2010, Institute of Public Administration 1,105
€ 850,000.00 July – Sept 2010 Grant in aid, Institute of Public Administration 1,105
€ 733,370.00 Current Programme Expenditure,Capital Programme Expenditure, SEUPB Peace 3778
€ 666,251.00 Peace III 3.1 current,Peace III 3.1 capital, SEUPB Peace III 8266
€ 657,500.00 Current Expenditure,capital expenditure, SEUPB-INTERREG 7027
€ 650,000.00 Jan/Feb 08 Grant in Aid, Institute of Public Administration 1,105
€ 650,000.00 March & April Grant-in-Aid, Institute of Public Administration 1,105
€ 650,000.00 May & June 08 Grant-in-Aid, Institute of Public Administration 1,105
€ 650,000.00 Grant-in-Aid July & August 08, Institute of Public Administration 1,105
€ 650,000.00 Sept and October 08, Institute of Public Administration 1,105
€ 650,000.00 Nov/Dec Grant-in-Aid, Institute of Public Administration 1,105
€ 628,000.00 Current expenditure,capital expenditure, SEUPB Peace III 8266
€ 627,500.00 INTERREG IIIA drawdown May ’08,INTERREG IIIA drawdown May ’08, SEUPB-INTERREG 7027
€ 620,000.00 Grant-in-Aid Final Balance 09, Institute of Public Administration 1,105
€ 618,797.45 Pension Levy Ain A DPER (307 PEAR) 11297
€ 610,413.50 Charitable Lotteries Scheme, Gael Linn 4476
€ 596,977.78 Charitable Lotteries Scheme, Gael Linn 4476
€ 590,000.00 Current expenditure,capital expenditure, SEUPB-INTERREG 7027
€ 564,034.40 Charitable Lotteries Scheme, Gael Linn 4476
€ 550,000.00 current drawdown,capital drawdown, SEUPB-INTERREG 7027
€ 545,000.00 Current Programme Spend,Capital Programme Spend, SEUPB-INTERREG 7027
€ 520,000.00 Re: Cork Créche, Suspense 08, O.P.W. Building and Maintenance 3726

Another interesting little nugget is the spending on lunches for the visits of the IMF in 2009 and 2010. The preferred venue for food was the Pearl Brasserie:

The full data (download here)