Enda Kenny
Question:1 Mr. Kenny asked the Taoiseach the number of freedom of information requests received by his Department during October 2006; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [32251/06]
Ceisteanna — Questions.
Freedom of Information.
Joe Higgins
Question:2 Mr. J. Higgins asked the Taoiseach the number of freedom of information requests received by his Department in October 2006. [35934/06]
Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin
Question:3 Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin asked the Taoiseach the number of freedom of information requests received by his Department during October 2006 and the comparable number for October 2004; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36320/06]
Trevor Sargent
Question:4 Mr. Sargent asked the Taoiseach the number of freedom of information requests he has received in October 2006; the revenue generated by associated fees and charges; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37082/06]
Pat Rabbitte
Question:5 Mr. Rabbitte asked the Taoiseach the number of freedom of information applications received by his Department during October 2006; the revenue generated from such applications; the equivalent figures for October 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38682/06]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 1 to 5, inclusive, together.
I propose to circulate in the Official Report the information requested by the Deputies on the statistics regarding freedom of information requests received in my Department. All freedom of information applications received in my Department are processed by statutorily designated officials in accordance with the 1997 and 2003 Acts and, in accordance with those statutes, I have no role in regard to processing individual applications.
|
October 2002 |
October 2003 |
October 2004 |
October 2005 |
October 2006 |
|
|
No. of applications |
13 |
2 |
12 |
16 |
3 |
|
Revenue generated |
€125.70* |
€30.00** |
€135.00** |
€195.00** |
€45.00** |
*Search & retrieval fees.
**Application fees (introduced 7 July 2003).
I have three questions. First, what type of requests are made to the Department of the Taoiseach under the Freedom of Information Act? While I do not want to know individual details, what is the nature of such requests?
Second, as I understand it, the Freedom of Information Act does not apply to the six North-South Implementation Bodies under the Good Friday Agreement. As the Taoiseach is aware, that deals with Tourism Ireland, the Food Safety Promotion Board, Waterways Ireland and Foras na Gaeilge, with which no issue of national security is involved. As the Taoiseach rightly pointed out in England yesterday, we face the opportunity and challenge of a future of developing the island of Ireland. Those four areas are central to economic development, North and South, and they are not——
The question refers specifically to the Department of the Taoiseach.
I know that, but the Taoiseach is in charge in respect of the Good Friday Agreement.
The Minister for Finance is in charge of freedom of information.
You are always at this, a Cheann Comhairle. I do not know whether you deliberately want to pick these issues.
No, Deputy. There are five questions, all of which refer to the Department of the Taoiseach.
The Good Friday Agreement is the responsibility of the Taoiseach.
A long-standing rule of successive Cinn Comhairle——
The Good Friday Agreement, which is so important to the people, North and South, is the responsibility of the Taoiseach. He has the support of all of the House in——
The legislation is the responsibility of another Minister.
I understand that. However, these are North-South issues which deal with four particular items.
My third point is one I have raised previously. The Information Commissioner referred in her report to the fact that under consumer legislation the cost of goods that are proven to be defective is refunded to the consumer. She went on to state that similar rules should apply to freedom of information fees which apply in the Department of the Taoiseach. If a public body at internal review overturns an earlier decision by the same public body, it seems iniquitous that the requester must pay an additional €75 to which he or she was entitled from the outset. In the case of an appeal to the Department of the Taoiseach, if the freedom of information officer refuses a request which is then granted on appeal, does the Taoiseach not think it would be logical and good manners, to say the least, in view of the falling numbers of applications for information to repay the initial amount in respect of information to which the person would have been entitled in the first place?
The Deputy asked a number of questions about the type of applications which are made. A majority of the applications received by the Department of the Taoiseach comes from journalists. The second biggest percentage of applications comes from members of the public. Very few sections in the Department are excluded under the legislation. The last examination by the joint committee of the non-disclosure provisions under section 32 of the Freedom of Information Act 1997 related to two areas of legislation. It was recommended that section 8(4) of the National Archives Act 1986 be included in the Freedom of Information Act and that Part V — sections 32 to 35, inclusive — of the Statistics Act 1993 continue to be excluded from the Act. In her report, the Information Commissioner indicated that she agrees with the recommendations. They are the only two that are excluded. All of the other legislative areas in the Acts are covered.
The Department of the Taoiseach has received almost 1,200 freedom of information requests to date. Just 98 requests have been received for internal review. Approximately 1% of that has been investigated by the Information Commissioner. A small number of Acts are referred to the Information Commissioner. A sum of money is paid during the Information Commissioner process. The Information Commissioner produces a provisional report in the first instance. In the provisional report, one can more or less see what the answer is going to be. One can still claim a refund at that stage. There are no difficulties in cases in which people want to claim back the money. Difficulties arise only in the small number of cases which go the entire way. It is a quasi-judicial process. Such cases involve a large amount of expenditure. It is estimated that each ordinary freedom of information case involves costs of just €475. Cases which go to the Information Commission are far more costly.
Has the Department of the Taoiseach taken note of the Information Commissioner's recent decision in the case of a woman job applicant to the former Southern Health Board? A previous employer was asked for a reference——
The Deputy's question does not apply to the Department of the Taoiseach.
If I am allowed to finish, I will demonstrate that it is directly applicable.
The Deputy would want to demonstrate that.
Has the Taoiseach taken note of the Information Commissioner's decision in the case I mentioned, in which an adverse or negative reference was made by the former employer? Have any such cases been experienced by the Department of the Taoiseach, in one or more such instances? Can the Taoiseach tell the House whether the Department independently seeks references from previous employers? Would the Department release pertinent information under the Freedom of Information Act in respect of an applicant for a job about whom an adverse point had been made? Would the Department have acted differently and in line with the Information Commissioner's ruling?
Do I understand correctly that the Deputy is referring to personal information about an individual?
Yes.
There is no restriction under the Act on the transmission of personal information about an individual. There is no cost in such circumstances. If an individual wants to find out what is in a former civil servant's file in the Department of the Taoiseach, for example, he or she is entitled to access that information. There are no restrictions in that regard, to the best of my knowledge. Sometimes there can be security restrictions, but I do not think that has happened in my Department. Normally, the information would be given to an individual.
Last October, the Taoiseach said that consideration was being given to extending the terms of the Freedom of Information Act to the Law Reform Commission. Can he give an update today on that consideration? What impact will the proposed Privacy Bill 2006 have on freedom of information legislation in his Department? I refer in particular to section 13 of the Bill, where a court injunction could prevent information being published.
The Information Commissioner revealed that there were 447 freedom of information appeals in 2005. Did any of those appeals relate to the Taoiseach's Department? If they did, what was their nature?
In 2006, an additional 130 bodies and groups were brought within the scope of the Freedom of Information Act. The bodies under the aegis of my Department, with the exception of the Law Reform Commission, are already within the scope of the Act. The question of extending the freedom of information legislation to the Law Reform Commission is currently under consideration. There has been no decision yet. I understand that the situation has been discussed with the commission's chairperson and that it is a question of figuring out the extent of the Law Reform Commission's remit that can come under the freedom of information framework. Much of its work would not be crucial and could come under it, but other aspects might be different.
Of the 447 appeals that went to the appeals commissioner, the figure for my Department is very small, if there were any at all. There is none mentioned in my briefing note. There have certainly been no appeals in the most recent period.
Will the Privacy Bill impact on the Taoiseach's Department?
No. All of the agencies under my Department are covered. I do not think it would make any difference, with the exception of the National Archives Act 1986. Section 8(4) of that Act is the only section we withheld and it is the only section that would cause difficulty.
Is it not the case that, whatever the motivation, the legislation passed in 2003 has acted as a deterrent to interested members of the public exercising their right to obtain information? Is that not the view of the Information Commissioner? Does the Taoiseach agree that the extension of the remit of the legislation to the Garda Síochána could be an important element in——
That does not arise in this question. The question refers specifically to the Taoiseach's Department. In fairness to other Deputies, I ask Deputy Rabbitte to stay within the rules.
Thank you, a Cheann Comhairle. The measure of this question time under your strict ferule, sir, means we would be as well off staying at home.
I am interpreting the rules as my predecessors have done for many years.
Maybe we could e-mail the questions to you beforehand and not bother coming in at all. You could then send the answers home to us.
I ask the Deputy to obey the rules like everyone else.
I will finish with Deputy Sargent's question. Over 1% have been investigated by the Information Commissioner since the Act was introduced almost nine years ago.
Was that in the Department of the Taoiseach?
Yes, in my Department. That is 1% of the 1,200 that happened in the period. The Ceann Comhairle has ruled on other agencies.
On Deputy Rabbitte's question, while there was a slight decrease for a while in the number of requests in my Department, they went back up again. There was an increase of about 30% last year. There was a slowdown in the use of the legislation for a considerable period, but that has gone back up again.
Office of the Attorney General.
Trevor Sargent
Question:6 Mr. Sargent asked the Taoiseach the problems encountered in the development of on-line legislation systems; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34124/06]
Jim O'Keeffe
Question:7 Mr. J. O’Keeffe asked the Taoiseach the steps which are being taken to rectify the serious data errors on the Irish Statute Book website maintained by the Office of the Attorney General; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35667/06]
Pat Rabbitte
Question:8 Mr. Rabbitte asked the Taoiseach if his attention has been drawn to a number of errors in the electronic version of the Irish Statute Book available on the website of the Office of the Attorney General; the steps being taken to have these errors corrected; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36472/06]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 6 to 8, inclusive, together.
In 1996, at the request of the then Attorney General, his office took on the task of preparing an electronic Irish Statute Book, eISB. The first release in CD-ROM format was in December 1998 in respect of the Acts for 1922 to 1997. Since then, the office arranged for the publication of the eISB on the Internet in September 2000, updating of the Internet site on three occasions and the publication of an updated CD-ROM version on two further occasions. The more recent updating included Acts, statutory instruments and chronological tables.
In August 2006, the office published the latest update to the Internet version comprising the Acts to the end of 2005, statutory instruments to No. 350 of 2005 and chronological tables to the statutes to the end of 2004. During the update process, the eISB project team established that a systematic error had occurred on a selection of the data contained in the Acts and statutory instruments for the period 1922 to 1998. This data error was caused by the insertion of hyperlinks, or direct clickable links to referenced parts of an Act or statutory instrument, during the process of publishing the CD-ROM version of the eISB in 1999 which caused some data to be overwritten. No such data errors have been located in post-1998 data.
The original contractor, Juta Publishing Limited of South Africa, was contacted and requested to furnish an explanation as to the nature and precise cause of the data error. This was received by the Office of the Attorney General.
After the problem came to light, the Office of the Attorney General arranged for an additional disclaimer to be added to the eISB Internet site explaining the data error problem and setting out two examples of the error. Relevant e-mail circulation lists were sent details of the data error and a notice was published in the Law Gazette and Bar Review publications. Other organisations that may have used the eISB data for 1922 to 1998 as a source of legislation were also informed.
The office discussed the provision of a solution internally as well as requesting CMOD to investigate and provide recommendations as to potential solutions.
The office sought submissions from external legal publishing companies to advise on the feasibility and costs involved in the application of the CMOD recommendations or on suitable alternative options to providing a solution to the data error problem. Expert advice is also being sought on the provision of best practices to ensure data accuracy and verification during the production process for publishing legislation. The office expects to engage a publishing company shortly and the explanation provided by Juta Publishing Limited, as referred to, will be made available to assist that process. It is expected that a report will be available from the publishing company by the end of January 2007.
It is interesting to return to this issue following the questions last November when, it is fair to say, the Taoiseach did not really appreciate the scale of the problem we had at the time. I am glad of his reply to the effect that some action has been undertaken. However, the issue really is whether the Taoiseach accepts we still have a problem if the on-line version of legislation in the Irish Statute Book is not dependable and people need to consult hard copy to get the verifiable version.
Does the Taoiseach accept this indicates that much money is being spent at present on a system that is not useable? This amounts to considerable wastage of taxpayers' money. This is not the first time Members have discussed the waste of taxpayers' money with regard to electronic communication matters. Can an end be seen to this debacle?
The Taoiseach mentioned other jurisdictions and the example of Tasmania is worth considering. It has undertaken to designate the electronic Statute Book as the authentic version. Can the Taoiseach envisage Ireland being able to provide assurances that the electronic version is the authentic version? Can the Taoiseach compare the cost in Tasmania of providing a level of service in which the electronic version is the authentic one, with what is spent in Ireland to provide a system that essentially is useless as far as providing a verifiable electronic form of the Statute Book is concerned? If not, I ask him to examine the matter. How much work must still be done before one can state the on-line version is verifiable?
The work on the full CD-ROM was finished in 1998. The error was only discovered last year by an official working in the section and it then took the office some time to ascertain the precise scale of the problem. This has all been done. Obviously, the officials have been back and forth with Juta Publishing Limited, the South African firm which did all of the work on this. In the main, international people worked on the project because it was the first time we had done a job like this.
Recently, as I stated in my reply, the office has been making use of the Centre for Management Organisation and Development, CMOD, of the Department of Finance to put forward a short to medium-term solution. This has led the office to use a legal publishing company here to advise on the matter, which is what is happening at present. A quotation document was issued to seven legal publishing companies and two responses were received by the October deadline. Following the evaluation of the quotations received, it was recommended that Thomson Round Hall be requested to produce the report, subject to a contract. I understand the contract has not yet been completed.
It has been established that this problem is soluble and it is a question of cost. The office had already enforced a penalty on the South African company previously, of approximately €130,000, for some other outstanding work. However, it is co-operating in this regard and will co-operate with Thompson Round Hall in the preparation of the report to find a resolution to this matter.
This morning, I asked staff in the Office of the Attorney General when they thought this process would get under way. They hope it will get underway in January, immediately after Christmas, in order to rectify the difficulty as outlined by Juta Publishing Limited and the legal reporting company which has been engaged to correct the problems.
When does the Taoiseach expect the process to be complete?
The process will not start until January. However, I understand that if the problem is identified, it may not take too long to sort it out.
Does the Taoiseach accept the Government and technology do not appear to get on very well? There has been the electronic voting fiasco and the PPARS debacle and now it transpires the Irish Statute Book cannot be properly put on the Attorney General's website. Does the Taoiseach accept the presence of the Statute Book on the website of the principal law officer of the State serves as authentication that it is correct? Does he accept it is horrific the laws made in the Oireachtas are not properly recorded there? Will he give us some idea of what has been done so far other than issuing a disclaimer? Is it merely telling people to ignore what is on the Attorney General's website? Is that the essence of what has occurred so far?
How much did it cost to organise this website? The Taoiseach mentioned a South African company. Has he any idea of what it will cost to fix it? On the timeframe, he mentioned the possibility that work, from the point of view of finding a solution to the problem, might be under way in January. Why were steps not put in hand straight away after the problem surfaced and why do we continue using an Attorney General's website which contains all these serious errors? More importantly, will the Taoiseach give an approximate date by which all these issues will be cleared up?
Overall, does the Taoiseach not accept this is a serious matter in that laws made must be promulgated and if that is done incorrectly, apparently authenticated by the principal law officer of the State, it could lead to a dreadful situation?
I do not wish to go back over the entire history of this project, which has been going on for the past decade. As I said, the first release of the CD-ROM format was in December 1998 in respect of Acts from 1922 to 1997. As Deputy Sargent stated, we do not use our technology as the authoritative legislative base. I do not think anybody does that, other than perhaps——
Tasmania.
——Tasmania.
The Greens are much stronger there.
Perhaps in the long term it is what we should do, but people are still using the Acts as they are. Since then, the Office of the Attorney General has arranged for the publication of the Statute Book on the Internet for the past six years and it has been updated on three occasions. Therefore, there have been companies other than the South African firm involved in it.
The more recent updates include Acts, statutory instruments and chronological tables. They are not all incorrect. The error has been identified. The fact that these were updated and many people were using and referring to the CD-ROMs and chronological tables shows it was an official who was doing an entirely different job in the Attorney General's department who came across this, but it is an error that must be corrected.
The original contract cost just over €1 million. That was to put all the Acts from 1922 to 1997 on CD-ROM. The reason the error was not corrected straight away is that they had to, first, go back to those who were involved in the project initially and then follow through to those who were involved in the three subsequent updates to identify where the problem lay and identify responsibility for the problem, and then they had to put it out to tender. They wanted to get a local firm which could assist in this and went out to seven legal publishing companies.
They are now working on a contract with Thomson Round Hall to report on this. They have not yet determined the cost involved, but they have identified the error and how the issue can be dealt with. It is now a question of the company coming in to update this. Given that the recent extensive updates cost €150,000, it should not be that costly. It was a question of identifying the error.
It is buttons compared to the money wasted elsewhere.
I do not consider it is waste. The cost of €1 million to put on CD-ROM all our legislation since the foundation of the State, from 1922 to 1997, including the chronological tables, is not great in technology terms. Unfortunately, there was an error in it which must be rectified and the project team has been working on that. It has moved on to examine many other successful aspects of the technology in that Department but an error occurred in this area which must be corrected. The team must now find the programme codes whereby this can be done. To this end, a company has been brought in to help and the contract has been prepared for this purpose.
Is this a single error or a series of errors? Is there any prospect of the State being sued as a result, by people who relied on the information they got from this website? Does the Taoiseach agree with me that in terms of marketing ourselves as the intelligent island, it is not great PR that we cannot manage electronic voting, the electoral register or a website like this one? We seem to have great difficulties when we bring in consultants and the answer appears to be to bring in more consultants to correct the first consultants' work. Meanwhile, the cost keeps mounting up. This seems to be a pattern going back to the computerisation of most Departments. We made calamitous cock-ups, which were revealed in successive reports by the Comptroller and Auditor General. These concerned the Department of Agriculture and Food, the Department of Social and Family Affairs and so on. It is a very expensive business.
As regards Deputy Rabbitte's first question, during the update process of the statutory instrument project it was established that a systematic error had occurred on a selection of data contained in the Acts and statutory instruments. The error was caused by the insertion of hyper-links, or direct clickable links, to reference parts of the Acts or statutory instruments during the process of creating the CD-ROM version of the Act in 1999. That caused some of the data to be overwritten. No errors have been located in the post-1998 data. It is a fact that technology systems throughout the world, and particularly in their start-up phase, are costly but one must start somewhere. Problems regularly arise when working through such systems. I am afraid that is par for the course in technology systems and has been for the last 25 years. Thankfully, they seem to get on top of them after a period and they work well. I am afraid, however, that the problem is not unique to this country. In this instance, people were brought in from abroad in the belief that they would have great solutions that had worked elsewhere. They also made mistakes, however, although admittedly only in some areas.
The Taoiseach said that a contract was about to be signed. I would be interested to know if there is a timetable associated with that contract or is it open-ended. Does the Taoiseach consider that once the work has been undertaken, this version will be the authentic one? He referred to Tasmania as being unique, although I am not sure whether it is. Is he saying that the Tasmanian standard of having an authentic version of the Statute Book on-line is somehow a bridge too far, a standard too high or something we will not be able to achieve? Alternatively, is he saying that is the objective of the contract on which he is about to sign off? At the end of that process, can the Taoiseach confirm that we will have an authentic, electronic Statute Book which will not have people scurrying about looking for the hard copy before they can make a decision? Ultimately, the service will be ineffective if it is not authentic. Will our standard be as high as Tasmania's or will we have to settle for something else?
Could the Taoiseach give an outline of what is currently on the website? Does it contain the Irish version of the legislation or only the English version? If it does not contain the Irish version does it comply with the Official Languages Act 2003? Regarding the authenticity of what is on the website, was it presented initially as an accurate reproduction of the legislation and was it reasonable for people to accept it as a true and correct record of the laws as passed in the Oireachtas? Has the Taoiseach any practical understanding of the problems that have been created for people as a result of this incorrect information being put on the website and the errors that have arisen due to the technological failure?
Is the Ceann Comhairle permitting only this round of questions?
We shall not move on to the next round of questions.
Has the Taoiseach been advised that a person who relied on this information may sue the State?
I am advised there is no such difficulty because it was not seen as the authentic version of the legislation and this is the case in common law countries. While the intention is to have each Act since 1922 stored in the correct form, as passed in this House, along with chronological tables and statutory instruments, it is not the authoritative version used in judgments in this and other countries.
Regarding Deputy Sargent's query, a legal position has been taken and it is not a question of the technology involved. I do not know that the issue of supplying the authentic version of legislation on-line has been addressed in Tasmania as completely as the Deputy suggests, but I will bring the matter to the attention of those involved here.
The object of introducing a company to work with our South African colleagues, Juta Publishing Limited, the original contractor, is to correct the error. Deputy Jim O'Keeffe suggested there were errors, but it was a print over — the data was caused by the insertion of hyperlinks. In layman's language that refers to referencing parts of the Act directly by clicking links and this facility was added as part of the process that caused data to be overwritten. It was not a question of parts of the Act being taken out; the information was overwritten. This rendered that section of chronological tables and statutory instruments fairly meaningless as the relevant links gave the wrong information. I understand the other parts are still usable. It is important to get this right and several other sections in other CD-ROMs have been checked in this regard. The CD-ROM in question, which has been updated three times, contains all the legislation from 1922 to 1997, all statutory instruments and all chronological tables and is hugely beneficial.
There is no difficulty with the latest update of the Internet version, comprising of Acts to the end of 2005, and 350 statutory instruments and chronological tables to the end of 2004. Hopefully the problems relating to the other Acts will be fixed in the coming months, however none of these on-line versions are the authoritative versions of an Act. I do not know when the electronic version will be the authoritative version or when such a decision will be made, and we will probably observe other common law jurisdictions to see how the issue is approached.
The contract is to be signed before Christmas and hopefully the work will begin after Christmas. The Secretary General in the Office of the Attorney General told me his staff are very anxious to do this work in the new year and have the matter rectified as soon as possible so that all legislation from 1922 to the end of 2004 is on CD-ROM.