The Government might "tweak" its amendments to the Freedom of Information Act, the Minister for Finance indicated yesterday.
But while Mr McCreevy told the Seanad there would be no substantial change to the controversial Bill, he told Opposition Senators: "What I might think of as tweaking, you might think of as substantive, or vice versa."
Mr McCreevy's comments during the report stage of the Bill in the Seanad came a day after a committee controlled by Fianna Fáil and the PDs called for "significant" amendments to the Bill.
The Oireachtas Joint Committee of Finance and the Public Service has sought additional time for hearings into the Government's Bill, in advance of the committee stage of the Dáil debate in a fortnight.
The committee's chairman, Mr Seán Fleming, said the Government chief whip, Ms Mary Hanafin, had indicated to him that any "positive" suggestions for amendments would be examined. However, Mr Fleming said he had not spoken to Mr McCreevy about the matter.
Mr McCreevy told the Seanad yesterday that reasonable suggestions from the Opposition would need to be considered, "but so far as the substance of the Bill is concerned there will be no change".
He was reacting to a complaint by the Labour Senator, Ms Kathleen O'Meara, who had said that he did not appear to be willing to accept any significant amendments to the Bill.
In the view of some political sources, the Government is likely to concede some of the concerns raised by the Information Commissioner, Mr Kevin Murphy, who has warned that aspects of the Bill could be challenged in the courts.
The same sources believe that the Government is likely to describe any new amendments as merely "technical", even though some observers might deem them to be significant.
The Bill was passed unamended in the Seanad yesterday, despite Opposition claims that the debate on the final stages had been a wasted exercise.
Mr McCreevy was present throughout the discussion on the report stage for which almost 50 amendments had been tabled. Many of the amendments were withdrawn and some were not pressed to a vote.
The Minister said he would reconsider the issues which had been raised in a minority of the amendments. Before the Bill was passed by 27 votes to 22, Independent Senator Dr Maurice Hayes said he had found himself unable to accept the Bill on the first reading.
A nominee of the Taoiseach, he said he was strongly in favour of parts of the Bill. But he felt it should be possible to get a more narrow definition of what constituted Government business in terms of records exempt from disclosure. In his view, there seemed to be a tendency to exclude Mr Murphy, from the process.
Following Mr McCreevy's statement that the Bill would be "tweaked", the Labour Senator Mr Derek McDowell said it had been made clear that the Minister had no intention of responding to the public debate on the issue.
When Mr McCreevy repeated that there was a possibility of tweaking as a result of the debate, Mr McDowell said: "Tweaking, but nothing of substance."