As the Government renegotiates its priorities and reshuffles the Cabinet, it is an appropriate time to look back and assess the Government’s achievements under its political reform programme. There has been a good deal of criticism at the slow pace of change and at the apparent absence of an appetite for reform among the Government…
Post by Kirsten Roberts* In democracies, parliaments are crucial in balancing the use of power by the executive and overseeing the functioning of the State. In Ireland this balance is off – with the executive and civil service seemingly unwilling to cede any real control to oversight or accountability mechanisms. While the Oireachtas has been…
The ongoing standoff between the Minister for the Environment and the Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPO) is yet another signal of just how much this government has backtracked on its supposed commitment to open government. At the heart of this issue is what level of party accounts should be made available for auditing and…
The underpinning values in freedom of information are openness and transparency. They can be regarded separately as openness represents an individuals right to access information and transparency representing a persons ability to scrutinize the decision making process. The need for adequate freedom of information provisions was summed up the Australian Senate Standing Committee on Legislation…
A recent post on The Story blog (see here) reveals the government’s cynical move to introduce last minute changes to the Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill 2013 that will make FOI prohibitively expensive and therefore, in large part, unworkable. This (1) is contrary to what was promised and will put Ireland even more out of…
On Friday, the Ireland Stat pilot website went live at http://www.irelandstat.gov.ie According to the DPER the objective of Ireland Stat is “to provide a whole-of-Government performance measurement system. At its simplest the website brings together data from a whole variety of different sources and sets them in the context of Department’s goals to show what…
Posted by David Farrell (March 8, 2012) The government’s (presumably first) annual report 2012 includes a chapter on political reform, helpfully listing the achievements to date. At first blush, if we take the list purely at face value, it does look impressive enough:
Posted by David Farrell (February 6, 2012) Reports are circulating that the government is about to take steps to deal with Ireland’s terrible shortcomings on Freedom of Information and Whistleblowers legislation (to be blogged about when more is known). Both measures were promised in the Programme for Government and they are important steps on the…
As stated by the fictional character of Sir Humphrey Appleby in Yes Minister ‘Open Government is a contradiction in terms. You can be open, or you can have government. The Thirty Year rule is a good example of this situation. The thirty year rule allows for the release of Cabinet Documents after the efflux of…
The left wing think tank Tasc yesterday released a series of essays. One was written anonymously allegedly by a senior civil servant. The Irish Times reported on it here. Much of the language is similar to posters on here. It derides a culture of secrecy, and argues that our inherited political, institutional and legal framework…
Irish Politics Forum 