FOI legislation ‘violates privacy of individuals’, Varadkar claimed

Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar argued in internal discussions within the Government that pay and pension details of individual office holders and top public servants should not be publicly revealed.

Internal Government files show Mr Varadkar was concerned the Freedom of Information Act as currently operated “violates the privacy of individuals”.

Mr Varadkar suggested pay and pension details for office holders and senior public-service staff were private matters and should only be made known on an anonymised basis.

His comments were contained in official observations submitted to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform by the Department of Transport as part of its internal consultation process in the run-up to the publication of proposed reforms to the legislation last summer.

The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform said this weekend that the Freedom of Information Bill was currently awaiting report stage in the Dáil and would then need to progress through the Seanad before enactment. It said the Bill was expected to be enacted in the first half of the year.

'Minister not satisfied'

The Bill has been described by Brendan Howlin as “ground-breaking legislation”.

However files released by the department show there was intense lobbying behind the scenes from departments, agencies and even Ministers to have particular areas under their jurisdiction removed from the scope of the new legislation.

The submission from the Department of Transport said: “The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport is not satisfied by the current operation of the Freedom of Information Act. It was conceived to give the public access to information held about them by public bodies and give greater access to Government files to the media and third parties in order to promote transparency and good governance.

“While both of these aims have been achieved and the Minister supports its extension to currently exempt public bodies, he is concerned [the] Act as currently operating violates the privacy of individuals.”

The Department of Transport said details of letters and representations made by the public to Ministers which were considered to be privileged if sent to the Oireachtas, should also be considered to be privileged if sent to departmental offices.

“Similarly, the remuneration and pension details of individual office holders and other senior public employees are private and should not be disclosed. The information can be given in an anonymised format as is the case for other public employees.

“The fees should reflect both actual cost in administration time and also the opportunity cost of work not done in the time taken up in replying to Freedom of Information requests.”

A spokesman for the Minister said Mr Varadkar had “a long track record of transparency as an office holder. Since he was elected to the Dáil he has published his expenses online, and this has continued since he was appointed a Minister”.

Requests
"In terms of Freedom of Information, Minister Varadkar successfully brought Iarnród Éireann into the FoI process.

“Responses to all Freedom of Information requests have been published on the department’s website since the general election.”

The spokesman said this particular note “highlights how the pension details of politicians and individual office holders are currently treated differently to those of public servants, who do not disclose their individual salaries and pension entitlements in response to queries”.