McCreevy not 'daft enough' to list FoI problems

The Minister for Finance said he was not "daft enough" to list difficulties that arose in Government in the past six years because of the Freedom of Information Act.

Mr McCreevy also said there was a "lot of hypocrisy" about the FoI Act. "I can tolerate almost anything in life, but hypocrisy I despise and it seems to be endemic among politicians," he said. He had been at meetings where TDs and senators had asked if the discussion was subject to FoI and adjusted their remarks accordingly.

"The same TDs and senators are then out criticising the changes in the Act and claiming that it was bad for government."

Mr McCreevy warned that at future meetings he would insist on a record being kept and it would be open to full public scrutiny. He was speaking during heated exchanges at the committee stage discussion on the Bill to amend the current Act

However, Fine Gael's spokesman, Mr Richard Bruton, accused the Minister of "bombast" and "bullying your way into suppressing information" and said it was "sad" that the Minister was never going to give them examples of "harm" done by the Act in the past six years.

Deputies were dealing with controversial proposals in the Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill, including the exemption of correspondence between Ministers from public scrutiny and delaying the release of Cabinet documents from five to 10 years.

Opposition deputies had repeatedly and without success pressed the Minister to outline examples of where the FoI had affected or interfered with good government. Mr Bruton said there was "not a shred of evidence that this is about better government but about weak Ministers protecting their hides". He called for a single concrete example of where a decision had been affected by the Act.

Mr McCreevy said: "I may have done some extraordinary things in my time, but do you think I'm daft enough to list out" problems which arose? "Do you think I'm nearly ready to be taken away?" He also asked did Mr Bruton really think that any civil servant would cite, if asked, problems which arose because of the impact of FoI.

Mr Bruton put it that there was not a single memo that the Minister had spiked because of fears about it getting into the public domain. The high-level group of five Government Department secretary generals had stated that it had "no experience" of civil servants not writing down information or taking decisions because of concerns about future publication. Mr McCreevy replied that "for God's sake", civil servants were not going to say that there were difficulties.

Mr Bruton said the Government was "bullying your way into suppressing information" and "slinking away from your obligations". There had not been concerns over the previous five years. It was a "political stroke", a decision taken in June last year and the Government wanted to "bury the evidence, having fooled the public in the run-up to the election".