The Government should abandon its plan to curtail the Freedom of Information Act, the largest trade union in the Civil Service said yesterday.
The Civil and Public Service Union (CPSU), which represents clerical and administrative workers, said the changes proposed by the Government would "substantially limit" scrutiny of civil servants and ministers.
Criticising the senior civil servants whose review of the Act called for many of the changes sanctioned by the Cabinet, the union said the Government was rolling back on its commitment to deliver openness, transparency and accountability in the public service. The union, which represents more than 13,000 people, said the curtailments would undermine the modernisation of the public service.
As the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, defended the changes in the Dáil yesterday, the CPSU said its members were committed to having their work fully open to scrutiny through the Act.
The remarks follow a statement last week from the union representing more than 2,500 senior civil servants, which said it should have been consulted in a review of the Act.
While the Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants declined to comment on the substance of the changes, the CPSU said the Government wanted to "shackle" the Freedom of Information Act.
The union's financial secretary, Mr Eoin Ronayne, called for full consultations in advance of the changes proposed by the Government.
A former Irish secretary of the National Union of Journalists, Mr Ronayne said such a review should be benchmarked against the Delivering Better Government report, which underpinned public service modernisation during the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness.
He said the new restrictions could jeopardise the benchmarking pay awards for clerical and administrative staff and those under the new social partnership agreement, Sustaining Progress. "Every move" in the modernisation process would have to be verified before pay awards were made.
The same principle should apply to senior civil servants and ministers, who had received a significant pay increase after the Buckley review.
Mr Ronayne said: "If the new Act goes through, top civil servants and Government ministers will be able to substantially limit the ability of the citizen to review their deliberations and decisions which affect them directly or indirectly."
He added: "It is ironic that at a time when public servants are delivering daily on the modernisation programme, that those at the top are seeking to limit and reverse such a fundamental element of the process as it impacts on their own area of work."
Mr Ronayne said the Government had failed to embrace fully the culture of openness despite promises from politicians, adding that the changes went against a philosophy of active citizenship.
He continued: "A sub-group of the Government's inter-departmental working group on Freedom of Information had placed a heavy emphasis on the need for senior management in the service to give the lead on FoI through encouraging a proactive approach to the release of information.
"This move by the Government turns the arguments made by their own working group on their head."
