The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is one of the most important pieces of legislation to have been passed in the last decade. It can cause a revolution in our democracy, because the people can actually monitor government and public authorities themselves.

Imagine having the power and being able to ask for what was hitherto secret correspondence between the Public Service Commission and the Prime Minister to determine whether the latter blocked your promotion, the minutes of meetings, special reports and policy papers, etc.

The significance of FOIA was explained by Justice Fennelly in Barney Sheedy –v– The Minister of Education and The Irish Times Ltd as follows:

“The passing of the FOIA constituted a legislative development of major importance. By it, the Oireachtas took a considered and deliberate step which dramatically alters the administrative assumptions and culture of centuries. It replaces the presumption of secrecy with one of openness. It is designed to open up the workings of government and administration to scrutiny. It is not designed simply to satisfy the appetite of the media for stories. It is for the benefit of every citizen.

It lets light in to the offices and filing cabinets of our rulers. The principle of free access to publicly held information is part of a world-wide trend. The general assumption is that it originates in the Scandinavian countries. The Treaty of Amsterdam adopted a new Article 255 of the EC Treaty providing that every citizen of the European Union should have access to the documents of the European Parliament, Council and Commission”.

The public service and bureaucracy of government painfully and slowly has to come to terms with the fact that citizens now have a right to shine a torchlight into their sacred places. This is a significant development because evidence of discrimination and unfairness is oftentimes secreted within the bosom of state agencies.

The FOIA has prompted an avalanche of judicial review applications as public authorities that have grown accustomed to the political culture of non-accountability and secrecy tries to cope with the prying tentacles of the FOIA.

The FOIA has created a mini-revolution in the concept of transparency and participatory democracy. The object of the Act as stated in Section 3 is to create “a general right of access to information in documentary form” and the provisions of the Act are to be interpreted in a manner that facilitates and promotes “promptly and at the lowest reasonable cost, the disclosure of information.”

If a public authority refuses access to the requested information, the aggrieved citizen has the right to apply for judicial review or make a complaint to the ombudsman. There are many defences open to public authorities however, they cannot be flippantly invoked as an excuse to deny access to information: the courts and the ombudsman must lift the veil and scrutinise the defence invoked by the public authority to see whether it is relevant, genuine and justified.

An application under the FOIA is free. The form is available at the back of the Act which can be easily downloaded from the Parliament Web site or the Office of the

Attorney General.

For the time being, the requested information is free as no fees have been prescribed. Don’t be deterred if you are refused access as most public authorities are unclear and uncertain as to when they can properly invoke the defences available under the FOIA and their natural instinctive reaction is to preserve the status quo by denying the public access to “secret documents.”

Secret documents are anything that the public was not entitled to before the FOIA, which is nothing. But rest assured that you can challenge any refusal via the courts and the ombudsman. The latter challenge is free.

The FOIA is simple and easy to use. It is designed for the responsible and conscious citizen. You don’t need a lawyer to help you make an application and the Act is easy to read and understand.

Had the Integrity Commission (IC) not been exempted, the public would have been entitled to request information about how many public officials were secretly granted exemptions by the IC and even ask for a copy of the letter that was written to the judges and magistrates.

I trust that now that I have explained the penetrating power and impact of the FOIA and its usefulness in the fight for accountability, integrity and transparency in public life, that the public would be more alert to moves by the Government to exempt public institutions from the Act.