The Government has rejected a demand by Information Commissioner Emily O'Reilly that more information about schools should be made available under Freedom of Information (FoI) Act powers. Mark Hennessy, Political Correspondent, reports.
Up to now Minister for Education Mary Hanafin has been able to ban publication of inspectors' reports or any information that could be used to compare schools' results.
However, the Information Commissioner said the powers under Section 53 of the 1998 Education Act - which has been buttressed by a Supreme Court decision - went too far.
She argued that serious consideration should be given to repealing Section 53, and it should be subject to Freedom of Information queries for as long as it remained in force.
Last December Ms O'Reilly pushed for some 100 sections of legislation which are currently excluded from the FoI Act to be brought under its remit.
The Oireachtas Committee on Finance and Public Service, chaired by Fianna Fáil Laois Offaly TD Sean Fleming,then asked Ministers to respond to Ms O'Reilly's demand.
Rejecting Ms O'Reilly's calls for greater FoI powers covering schools, Ms Hanafin said: "There is no benefit in releasing information that could in any way lead to the compilation of league tables.
"This would only have the negative effect of creating an unfair and unhealthy competition amongst schools based on the narrow focus of final exam results," she told Mr Fleming in a letter last month.
School inspection reports, said the Minister, would be published by the Department of Education and Science.
This, she said, would avoid "the potentially very damaging appearance of crude league tables".