Review of public bodies excluded from FOI Act

The exclusion of a range of public bodies from the remit of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act will be considered by an Oireachtas committee next month and recommendations made to the Government about how the system can be improved.

Seán Fleming, the chairman of the Oireachtas Committee on Finance and the Public Service, said yesterday that the committee would consider a report from Information Commissioner Emily O'Reilly, in which she has complained about the exclusion of a number of bodies from FOI.

Mr Fleming said his committee would consider Ms O'Reilly's report on February 15th and it would move later to make its own recommendations.

He said that when the Act was passed in 1997 there was provision for a review by the Dáil every five years of the bodies that should be excluded from the terms of the legislation. That review had begun and the information commissioner's report was part of the process.

More than 100 bodies or sensitive sections of Government departments were excluded from FOI under the original Act but almost another 50 bodies or agencies have since been added to the list of exclusions.

Ms O'Reilly has complained in her report about the exclusion of a range of new agencies and said that it demonstrated that "a culture of secrecy" was continuing to operate.

"There can be no doubt that it hinders the achievement of a simple, transparent and consistent approach to the treatment of information in public bodies," she said.