{"id":662070,"date":"2025-12-30T08:27:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T08:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/662070\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T08:27:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T08:27:12","slug":"freedom-of-information-law-would-cause-european-sources-to-dry-up-officials-feared-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/662070\/","title":{"rendered":"Freedom of Information law would cause European sources to dry up, officials feared \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Officials in the Department of Foreign Affairs<\/a> (DFA) were concerned that plans to introduce Freedom of Information legislation would result in sources in Europe drying up \u2013 to Ireland<\/a>\u2019s \u201cgreat disadvantage\u201d \u2013 files from 1995 show. <\/p>\n

Amid plans to bring in the new legislation, which was eventually implemented in 1997, officials in the DFA expressed fears about the impact it could have.<\/p>\n

Ireland\u2019s Freedom of Information legislation, which was updated in 2014, gives people the right to request copies of records held by public bodies and Government departments. <\/p>\n

A request can be refused for multiple reasons, including if the information in question contains personal or commercially sensitive information or if it is protected by legal privilege.<\/p>\n

Government officials had a number of concerns about the legislation prior to its introduction.<\/p>\n

An internal document dated July 10th, 1995, noted that DFA officials wanted to \u201censure that it continues to be possible for the Irish administration to gather information effectively on policy formulation within the European Union<\/a> institutions\u201d.<\/p>\n

In the file, a DFA official said there were \u201ctwo major sources of information\u201d from Europe for the Irish administration at the time \u2013 the European Council<\/a> and its working groups, and the European Commission<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe rely heavily on the flow of information from within the Commission either through the Cabinet or direct from contacts in the services, for advance warning of Commission intentions,\u201d the official wrote.<\/p>\n

They said Irish officials \u201crelied very heavily on access to internal Commission documentation\u201d when preparing their negotiating positions on certain topics. <\/p>\n

Citing concerns about the proposed legislation, the DFA official said: \u201cIf this documentation, or internal national documents drawing on it, goes into the public arena, then the sources will dry up to our great disadvantage.\u201d<\/p>\n

They continued: \u201cThe loss of influence will be perceptible. We will be seriously hampered in trying to ensure that Commission proposals come out in a form satisfactory to Ireland. A Commission proposal is very hard to change once it has been made \u2013 unanimity is required.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Officials in the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) were concerned that plans to introduce Freedom of Information legislation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[11324,2000,299,5187,2557,1699,201677],"class_list":{"0":"post-662070","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-department-of-foreign-affairs","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-european","12":"tag-european-commission","13":"tag-european-union","14":"tag-state-papers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115807573999130681","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}