The Irish government’s announcement that it is planning to increase costs for Freedom of Information requests has (rightly) caused anger about the willingness of transparency and giving citizens their right to information.
Here are some of the responses from Twitter about the changes, and the importance of FOI.
FOI is not a cost to the state it is a benefit to the state ,exposing corruption and misspending #foi
— Paul Sommerville (@PaulSommerville) November 11, 2013
You can’t expect to have active citizens participating in a democracy without free and transparent access to #FOI — Paddy Cole (@PaidiCole) November 11, 2013
@OECD says no upfront #FOI fees, @coe says no upfront #FOI fees. Reason: Better public services and less corruption. — Fred Logue (@fplogue) November 11, 2013
Right now #FOI responders in Ireland have a duty to inform you of your legal rights. Brendan Howlin’s cowardly weasel amendments abolish it
— John Handelaar (@handelaar) November 11, 2013
When journalists that have done so much to expose corruption + cronyism in Ire are worried re new #FOI rules we should ALL be worried #vinb
— Paul Sommerville (@PaulSommerville) November 11, 2013
Hey @labour : This is what you said re #foi in 2011. So how come your doing the opposite now? Were you lying then? pic.twitter.com/L2yOzmF2Lv — brian lucey (@brianmlucey) November 10, 2013
The media’s coverage, or lack of it, has come under some criticism.
People at #Strataconf very aware of Howlin’s attempt to kill #FOI. Amazing since I’ve seen very little in Irish newspapers. (cc @gavinsblog) — Colin McGovern (@cmcgovern) November 11, 2013
Responses I’ve gotten from some media types re #FOI changes suggest they haven’t been paying attention. “We’ll look at it later/soon” #fail
— Daragh O Brien (@daraghobrien) November 11, 2013
More written about #FOI in my RSS feed than in today’s papers. And news industry wonders why its in treouble
— Gerard Cunningham (@faduda) November 11, 2013
The committee hearing to discuss the bill will be today.
#FOI committee hearings commence tomorrow 415PM, Ctte Room 4. Watch at http://t.co/CYGnLEIf1q listen/
— Gerard Cunningham (@faduda) November 11, 2013