The Transparency Manifesto: Right to Know publishes discussion document ahead of government review of the Freedom of Information Act

Back in June, Minister Michael McGrath promised that a review of the Freedom of Information Act was to take place.

Given added impetus by the fallout from the controversy over deletion of records during ‘Zapponegate’, this review has now been brought before Cabinet.

Right to Know is publishing this discussion document on some of the areas we believe are most in need of reform.

We do this because of our concerns about any review of information access that would be driven primarily by public bodies themselves and poorly informed ‘cost of FOI’ concerns.

This happened in 2003 and resulted in the gutting of the FOI Act and the introduction of €15 ‘up-front’ fees for requests.

The number of requests being made each year was effectively halved as a result; other restrictions were also introduced.

The abolition of the up-front fee in 2014 by then Minister Brendan Howlin helped restore the act closer to its original form.

Yet problems persist in how FOI operates in Ireland, with widespread non-declaration of records and some public bodies repeatedly failing to meet their obligations.

This is a working document. It is based on our experience as users of the act, and the many emails and messages we receive from the public and the media about their own experiences.

Not everything in it will be possible; there are other problems that we may not have identified here.

It is published to help inform the debate on what kind of Freedom of Information Act Ireland should have … from the perspective of those who make requests.

Right to Know launches new Patreon account as our latest information access case is heard in the High Court

Throughout this week, Right to Know will be in the High Court for an historic case seeking access to records from the Council of State.

It’s just our latest case as we seek to enhance the right of citizens to access information about how Ireland works.

We are also launching our new Patreon account to give our supporters a new way of contributing to our work.

With many Patreon accounts, different levels of support mean different levels of access.

With Right to Know, access will remain equal whether you support us or not as we pursue our goals of transparency through requesting information, publishing documents, and making appeals.

Since our small not-for-profit was launched five years ago, we have made thousands of requests for information and made dozens and dozens of appeals.

In the past year alone, these have been some of our achievements:

  • We won a case to make a wind farm operator subject to Access to Information on the Environment requests.
  • We published inspection reports from meat processing plants during the Covid-19 pandemic. We are also fighting to have their names disclosed.
  • Our complaint to the UN’s Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee on systematic delays in dealing with AIE requests was upheld. The government has now begun a public consultation process on how to improve the operation of those regulations.
  • We were the first to make available postal code-level data on Covid-19 infections and deaths as part of our efforts to secure greater transparency around coronavirus; not long after, the HSE began publishing more granular detail.
  • Our director Gavin Sheridan won a key case forcing public bodies to give detailed reasons for why information should not be disclosed in the eNet case.
  • We won a case on publication of a report by the Data Protection Commissioner on the use of CCTV by a local authority.
  • We have made available tens of thousands of pages of records on every issue imaginable, all of which you can read on our publishing website www.thestory.ie 

We can only do this work with your help. Even if you’re not in position to sign up for our Patreon subscription, you can still help by spreading the word about Right to Know to your family and friends.

Thanks for your continuing support!

Draft conclusions from Right To Know complaint over systematic delays in access to information on the environment requests are published

Two years ago, Right to Know travelled to Geneva for a hearing with the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee on foot of a complaint we made in August 2016.

This related to long systematic delays in dealing with requests made by us – and others – under the Access to Information on the Environment (AIE) regulations.

One such case was Right to Know director Gavin Sheridan’s long-standing efforts to have the National Asset Management Agency made subject to AIE requests.

The delays persisted and in many of our cases – including ones relating to Coillte, the Office of the President, the Council of State, the Celtic Roads Group, and a number of government departments – decisions were taking at least a year to be made.

In their draft conclusions, the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee has found the following.

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It is important to say these are only draft conclusions, and it is open to both Right to Know and the Office of the Commissioner for Environmental Information to make further observations.

You can read the report in full below:

Right to Know takes case over access to lobbying record from business group Ibec

A case taken by Right to Know opened in the High Court earlier this week.

The case concerns access to a submission made to the Department of Transport by the business group Ibec.

Our application had been refused by the Commissioner for Environmental Information on the basis that the record was not environmental information.

Right to Know believes it is. You can read more about it in this article from the Irish Examiner.

Right to Know wins case over access to fees paid as part of the Apple tax case

The Department of Finance has released full details of €8.4 million in payments to lawyers and consultancy firms involved in the Apple tax case.

The release came on foot of advice from the Attorney General and following an FOI request by Right to Know.

The Department ceased publishing details of these payments in April 2019 because of concerns they had that it was in breach of GDPR.

Following our request, the Department sought further legal advice with the Attorney General confirming the information could be published in the interests of transparency and accountability.

You can see the record on DocumentCloud.

Information Commissioner rules that release of pensions paid to former Ministers, Taoisigh, and Presidents would be “significant breach” of privacy

The Information Commissioner has decided that release of the individual details of pensions paid to former Ministers, Taoisigh, and Presidents would involve a “significant breach” of their privacy.

The details had been published as a matter of routine by the Department of Finance for many years.

However, they ceased this practice in 2016 believing it was no longer possible following the introduction of GDPR.

Right to Know sought the information under FOI, and appealed the case to the Information Commissioner.

The Office of the Information Commissioner upheld the decision however, resulting in a reversal of more than a decade of transparency surrounding these pension payments.

You can read the decision in full at the following link.

Right To Know and Public.Resource.Org initiate legal action against the European Commission

Today, Right To Know – in collaboration with US access to information NGO Public.Resource.Org (“Public Resource”) – announced they have initiated legal action against the European Commission at the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).

Right To Know and Public Resource are seeking from the European Commission access to descriptions of certain technical standards agreed by the European Committee for Standardisation (Comité Européen de Normalisation) or “CEN“.

We sought technical public safety standards with the force of law that include the safety of toys, including children’s chemical sets and and those relating to the chemicals present in products such as finger paint.

Late last year, we sought access to these standards via a request under Regulation 1049/2001 (containing Aarhus Convention related amendments). The European Commission refused access to these standards at both the first juncture and after a confirmatory appeal.

Our legal action at the General Court seeks to annul this decision of the Commission to refuse access to these standards.

It is the view of both Right To Know and Public Resource that harmonised technical standards form part of EU law and should therefore be available to any EU citizen – without restriction.

We rely in particular on the decision of the Court of Justice in James Elliott Construction (C-613/14) that “a harmonised standard … and the references to which have been published in the Official Journal of the European Union, forms part of EU law”.

Right To Know Director Gavin Sheridan said: “We believe all EU citizens have a right to access and read all EU law. EU law includes harmonised technical standards – and those technical standards include the safety of toys.”

“We are pleased to be working with Public Resource and its founder Carl Malamud who has a very long and admirable record in working on access to information rights globally.”

“We are both perplexed as to why EU citizens – including parents – are unable to read the standards imposed on toy manufacturers concerning the levels of chemicals to which their children might be exposed. It seems odd to us that EU citizens must currently pay for access to this information – it should be available for free and without restriction on re-use, or dissemination.”

Public Resource and Right To Know are represented by Morrison Foerster in Berlin, Germany and by FP Logue solicitors in Dublin, Ireland.  

Public Resource is a not-for-profit public charity established in the United States to make government information more broadly available to citizens and to help make governments use the Internet more effectively.

Right To Know is a not-for-profit company established in Ireland that seeks to vindicate the rights of citizens to access information, as part of their fundamental rights to freedom of expression.

A Renewed Mission: What’s next for Right To Know

 

When TheStory.ie came into this world nearly ten years ago now, it began as an experimental blog run by journalists on a volunteer basis.

It was an attempt to bring together investigative journalism, the right to freedom of information (FOI), and transparency advocacy, to see what would come out.

Through the use of systematic FOI requests, legal appeals, data journalism, and the online archiving of every government document released to us, what came out wasn’t half-bad.

In 2013 we vigorously campaigned against the introduction of upfront fees for FOI requests, sounding the alarm when we saw that there was an attempt to introduce them via a Committee Stage amendment to the drafting of the 2014 FOI bill.

In 2014 the infamous “Trichet Letters” were released, detailing the immense pressure brought to bear on the Irish state by the European Central Bank (ECB) in 2010, following a three-year appeals process which we initiated via the EU ombudsman.
We were also the first to publish the letter which Ireland sent formally seeking a bailout.

In 2015 NAMA were defeated in the Supreme Court on an issue directly related to its transparency and accountability, based on a request we sent in February 2010, and on a lengthy submission made by us (with the enormous work of lawyer Fred Logue advising pro bono).

In 2016 then, we finally took the plunge and started Right to Know (RTK), the non-profit NGO focused on transparency and access-to-information advocacy which now publishes TheStory.ie.
In summer of this year, we won a case against An Taoiseach in relation to accessing records of Cabinet discussions, which you can read about below.

This was all informed by the strong belief that the right to the
freedom of expression depends critically on the right to be informed: the right to information.

Since these are clearly times when an independent free-press has never been more vital, we’re taking things one step further, developing into a fully-fledged, if lean,
non-profit investigative journalism newsroom.

We’ve expanded our team, and in addition to continuing to push for greater transparency and accountability, we’ve got some very exciting projects in the works:

  • We’ll be publishing this monthly newsletter, giving a roundup of what we’re working on and what other journalists in Ireland have been publishing using access to information legislation.
  • We’re launching a podcast, where we’ll be discussing the state of public information journalism, and talking to some of the best hands around about how they go about their work.
  • We’re initiating several special projects, where we’ll be routinely collecting and publicly uploading Ministerial Diaries, Local Authority annual financial returns and asset registries, departmental reports, declared donations, and more…
  • We’ve already begun targeted in-depth investigations based on Freedom of Information requests
  • We’re offering FOI Training sessions and seminars

That’s where we need your help.

We are dedicated to building a sustainable independent public-interest news organisation that can push for greater accountability and transparency, without paywalls or advertising.

That means we need the support of people who think that it’s worthwhile having such an organisation around. We recognise that our appeal is slightly narrow in its focus, but part of our ultimate goal is to build a community of people who share our belief that being informed is a key part of civic and public life, and this kind of work requires public support to operate. We’re also committed to total transparency in releasing our own accounts, and showing our supporters where their donations go, and how they are directly contributing to independent public-interest journalism.

Please consider becoming a donor if you think you can, but if not, stay tuned anyway because it’s all kicking off from here.

 

Support our mission and become a donor:

You can subscribe for €25, €50, €100 or €500 per year.

Subscribe here:

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Stay Tuned:



You can also keep up to date with our work by following our campaigning work here on the blog as well as Twitter and Facebook.

To see the stories that come FOI-sourced investigative work, go to TheStory.ie  and follow TheStory.ie’s Twitter.

Right To Know wins case against An Taoiseach

Today Right to Know CLG won its case against An Taoiseach in relation to access to records of Cabinet discussions. The unapproved judgment is here and is subject to correction.

We believe this to be a significant victory for access to information rights generally, and for the applicability of EU law when there is conflict with national law, including the Constitution. It is open to An Taoiseach to appeal this decision, but we believe such an effort would not ultimately be successful. The public has a right to know how our Cabinet is discussing Climate Change, and what measures are being taken to mitigate its affects. We also should know if what is being said at Cabinet reflects what is being said in public.

Right To Know will continue to seek to vindicate the rights of citizens to access information, whether it be under national or EU law, including FOI, AIE, GDPR or rPSI.

We would like to thank all of our members for their support. We would also like to thank our awesome legal team: FPLogue Solicitors, Noel Travers SC and Gary Fitzgerald BL.

Why does the IDA want lower income taxes?

Earlier this year a newspaper report indicated that the IDA was lobbying against higher income taxes claiming that high income tax was making it difficult to attract foreign investment and was hitting job creation.

In August last year we submitted an FOI request looking for the analysis to back up these claims and all records of any lobbying in respect of income tax and social security rates in Ireland.

The IDA said that it continually analyses personal taxation and social security and how it influences FDI in Ireland and pointed to various methods including a 2015 survey by KPMG, a report from the Tax Institute and engagements with stakeholders, clients and staff. Specifically IDA undertook research in 2016 to identify reasons why some companies who considered Ireland chose to go elsewhere. According to the IDA, personal tax was among the reasons why they did not choose Ireland.

However, none of the underlying records were identified or released.

All IDA provided were redacted copies of 2017 pre-budget submissions calling on the government to reduce the top rate of income tax from 52% to below 50% and to set out a road map of income tax reductions up to 2020.

Tax rates are a big public interest issue. Taxes are used to fund public services (including the IDA it must be noted). With lower tax rates there must be an objective analysis of the trade-offs that are being made. While nobody necessarily wants to pay more tax – a public body such as the IDA would be expected to be sensitive to the bigger issues at play when it calls for tax cuts. In particular there must be a clear public benefit based on objective analysis so that the IDA position is substantially more than mere lobbying on behalf of big business.

We believe that the IDA must disclose its tax analysis and identify the interests that are driving it to intervene in the public debate over tax rates. To that end we are not satisfied that so much information has been withheld and have now filed an application with the Information Commissioner to review the IDA’s decision to keep the bulk of its information supporting its position on lower taxes from public scrutiny.

The Information Commissioner has invited us to make a submission in early January and we expect him to make a decision shortly after that.

We will keep you posted.

Here is IDA’s response: