Access to Information Updates
The Gardai are getting some press today for the amount spent – €14.5 million – on resources for the Corrib gas site. It is interesting to contextualise this figure. In total, Gardai travel and subsistence claims totaled €181,605,359.30 from 2004 to mid 2010.
I will publish the entire 641,576 row database shortly. It does not contain the name of any personnel.
As part of an ongoing process. This is the appointments diary of the then Minister for Finance Charlie McCreevy for the year 2002.
To new visitors coming from the Irish Times, you can view the 2010 Taoiseach expenditure data here. There is an option to download the information on the right and there is a zoom function on the top.
Part of an ongoing process. This is the diary of the then Minister for Finance Charlie McCreevy for 2003.
Part of an ongoing process. This is the diary of the then Minister for Finance Charlie McCreevy for 2001.
Dylan Haskins has been kind enough to donate €1,000 to TheStory.ie, after he was reimbursed election expenses from the 2011 general election. TheStory.ie is not a registered charity, but any funds received are declared to the revenue, and either tax is paid on it, or I will submit a PAYE “self assessment” to show that the income was spent (it is for people receiving income from sources where some or all of the tax cannot be collected under the PAYE system, for example: profits from rents, investment income, foreign income and foreign pensions, maintenance payments to separated persons, fees, profit arising on exercising various Share Options/Share Incentives). This just means that the full amount can be spent on requests.
My proposal is this: What FOI would you like to get done? Is cost a barrier? How about you propose your FOI here, and TheStory.ie helps with your request and also pays for all costs (within reason)? If you’re a student, an NGO, or just an interested citizen – leave a comment or get in touch privately – gavinsblog at gmail dot com.
The only condition is that the results of all FOI requests will be published online for everyone to see (but it can be after you do your story, should you do one).
Late last year I asked for the follow information from the Department of the Taoiseach:
1) A ‘datadump’, (ie a copy/export of) the Oracle financial management system in use by the Department covering the time period for 2010. This datadump should contain data relating only to the following subheads:
Travel and subsistence (A2)
Training and development and incidental expenses (A3)
Postal and Telecommunications services (A4)
Office equipment and external IT services (A5)
Office premises expenses (A6)
Consultancy services and value for money and policy reviews (A7)
National economic and social (B)
Commemoration initiatives (C)
Tribunal of Inquiry (Payments to Messrs CJ Haughey and M Lowry) (D)This should include the following column heads (ie fields)
Payment date; Subhead item; Cost Centre; Vendor Name; Invoice number; Line description; Amount.
Subhead A1 covers salary data, which did not form part of this request. While the data was released in a physical hard copy format (yes printed out and posted to me), the total sum of non-salary expenditure should amount to €6.465m. Because I have not converted the documents into spreadsheets, and because some lines are entirely blacked out, I have not been able to perform a SUM calculation on the spreadsheets.
The data contains spending of all types, including telephones, post, lunches, travel, bus fares, road tolls, flights, hotels, taxis, ferries, catering, photography, books, newspapers, bank charges, couriers, tea/coffee, legal charges, uniform cleaning, footwear, mobile phones, photocopying, office equipment, stationery, cleaning, cleaning supplies, and more.
In a somewhat disappointing turn of events, the Office of the Commissioner for Environmental Information has withdrawn from High Court action between itself and the National Asset Management Agency. However the case between it and Anglo Irish Bank (IBRC) continues, and is still listed for hearing in the High Court on January 31st.
Without going into the long (and boring to many people) details of the case, it seems as though NAMA argued that because I had narrowed the scope of my request over half way through the process, this meant I had effectively withdrawn my request. But actually I narrowed the scope of my request in the hope of expediting the process, since at that stage it had lasted 18 months. At no point did I withdraw it. But it was arguable, and lawyers do love to argue (and in this case at a large financial cost to the public). Since I am not the one involved in the case (and indeed was never a notice party to it) it is not my call to withdraw the original Decision, but rather that of the Commissioner.
However, the crux of the issue remains and I hope the Anglo case resolves it.
The core issue is how to read the Access to Information on the Environment (AIE) Regulations 2007. And essentially that comes down to what “and includes” means in statutory interpretation. This question should be answered in the Anglo Irish Bank case, and any ruling that comes from it will affect NAMA (and indeed a range of other public authorities/bodies).
It is a relatively minor setback for greater transparency, but overall the fight continues both for more accountable institutions and for legal clarity.
Update: It appears the situation changed today. The case will proceed on May 17th, 2012.
I see the Central Bank has sent letters out to customers who are involved with the website yourmoney.ie. The company behind yourmoney.ie is called Dunne & Maxwell Limited, a company previously called Zaynabi Limited.
One of the main shareholders in Dunne & Maxwell according to the 2009 B1 Certificate is Adam Deering, with a registered address in Cheshire, UK. Other shareholders are people from Cork – Derek Murphy and Jerry Curtis. Jerry Curtis resigned as a director of the company in late 2009.
This is the company’s only B1 certificate. No accounts are available. The company also is listed for strike-off.
Of course publishing this information does not imply wrongdoing on the part of the above-named individuals, I am simply publishing documents relating to the company in question.
This is the complete final report of the Chestvale Properties and Hoddle Investments Report, also known as the Glackin Report. It was an investigation in 1993 into the Johnston Mooney & O’Brien / Telecom Eireann scandal by solicitor John Glackin.