Information Commissioner Emily O'Reilly has sharply criticised alterations to the Freedom of Information Act, claiming they have led to a dramatic drop in requests.
She had already stated, she said, that she did not believe the Oireachtas, in introducing the amendments to the Act and approving the introduction of fees, appreciated just how draconian they would prove to be.
"Not alone are we out of line with the European Commission, which does not charge a fee for FoI requests, we are out of line globally in terms of similar jurisdictions. My investigation report showed that only Ontario charges for appeals to the Information Commissioner - €15.60 compared with the €150 charged here."
Ms O'Reilly said that, in all, just over 12,500 requests were made to public bodies under the FoI Act last year. "This represents a decrease of nearly 6,000 requests, or 32 per cent, on 2003.
"The overall fall between 2003 and 2004 is in line with the pattern of decline identified in my June 2004 investigation on which I reported to you last July. I am on record as saying that I believe that this decline is directly attributable to the introduction of fees for non-personal requests."
In a question-and-answer session with the Oireachtas Committee on Finance and the Public Service, Ms O'Reilly said that in some ways the attitude towards FoI in certain quarters mirrored the attitude of some in officialdom towards the appearance of the first newspapers in Great Britain in Cromwell's time.
The media, she added, used the Act far less since the introduction of fees and amendments. Before fees, journalists accounted for 13 per cent of all requests submitted under the Act, but now they made up only 7 per cent.
Fine Gael finance spokesman Richard Bruton said the penny had dropped long before Ms O'Reilly's review of the Act. "People knew what they were doing when they brought in this legislation. They knew they were curbing access to information."
Accusing the Government of engaging in a "stitch-up", Mr Bruton said Ms O'Reilly's predecessor had not even been consulted on the matter. Ms O'Reilly said she was disappointed that there had not been more debate in the media when she drew attention to this in last year's report.
Answering a series of questions on her role as Ombudsman, she argued that the office should be given constitutional status. She added that the Constitution review group had pointed out that in the same way as the Comptroller and Auditor General monitored financial accountability, the Ombudsman monitored administrative accountability.
