The new Ombudsman and Information Commissioner has said she will closely monitor the operation of the recently restricted Freedom of Information Act to ensure it is not used to bring unjustified secrecy to government and the public service.
Ms Emily O'Reilly, who takes up her new post today, told The Irish Times that she will "keep a really good watch" to ensure the implementation of the Act is "maximalist". As a journalist Ms O'Reilly publicly opposed the Government's controversial amendment of the Act earlier this year to restrict its operation.
In particular, she said, she will scrutinise the behaviour of secretaries-general who have now been given the power to issue certificates withholding information on certain matters because a "deliberative process" is under way.
"If there seems to be a particularly heavy volume of these certificates being issued in a particular Department then the Commissioner can inquire, and it can be highlighted in a report that Department X has a huge number of those certificates."
Ms O'Reilly, a high-profile journalist for more than two decades, was nominated to the posts of Ombudsman and Information Commissioner in March by the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy. Today is the start of a six year renewable term of office.
In an interview Ms O'Reilly said she believed the Ombudsman's office should be written into the Constitution to copperfasten its position in Irish civic life.
"It means that nobody could abolish the office, although I don't think that's likely to happen. But it also means that it couldn't be strangled in terms of resources" by a government that found its efforts troublesome.
She said she would be asking Mr McCreevy to widen the remit of the office to include non-commercial semi-State bodies such as Forfas, the IDA, the Blood Transfusion Service Board, as well as public hospitals. Such a change did not require legislation but could be done simply by order of the Minister.
As Freedom of Information Commissioner she will be responsible for overseeing the relatively new and recently curtailed freedom of information regime.
She said there was still a "mindset" in some Departments hostile to freedom of information. However, it had to be implemented, and she believed her predecessor, Mr Kevin Murphy, was correct to let his concerns about the Government's restrictions be known.
She said she hoped that as Ombudsman she could play an important role in ensuring the State's most vulnerable people were treated properly. The treatment by the State of haemophiliacs infected by blood products supplied by the State showed how badly it could treat its citizens.