Author Archives: Simon McGarr
Request for clarification from Law Society on Plain Packaging
Arising from the Law Society’s presentation to the Oireachtas Joint Commission on Health and Children regarding proposed plain packaging for Tobacco products, a number of solicitors have written to the President of the Law Society, the Director General and the IP Committee. Amongst other issues, we have requested that the following questions be addressed. whether the role and functions of committees (other than those performing regulatory functions) have been specified by the Society; whether the Society has a policy on […]
The National Archives and The Department of Justice’s living history
The National Archives are governed by legislation. S8 of the primary National Archives Act 1986 sets out the requirement on Government departments to hand over files after 30 years. Geraldine Kennedy in The Irish Times has reported on the surprising lack of new information in the files to be released this year on the GUBU phone tapping scandal of 1983; “There are six phone-tapping files in all: four from the Department of the Taoiseach and two from the attorney general’s […]
Holiday Arrangements
The office will be closed from 3.30pm today. We will reopen on the 6th January 2014. Please feel free to email us, as all emails will be priority in the new year. In the meantime, have a great Christmas.
ECJ Advocate General’s Opinion recommends Data Retention directive be struck down
The Advocate General of the European Court of Justice has delivered his opinion in the Digital Rights Ireland challenge to the Data Retention Directive. He says: I propose that the Court should answer the questions referred by the High Court in Case C 293/12 and the Verfassungsgerichtshof in Case C 594/12 as follows: (1) Directive 2006/24/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 March 2006 on the retention of data generated or processed in connection with the […]
Sean Sherlock makes a welcome statement of support for EU copyright reform
Irish Minister Sean Sherlock announces his support for EU-wide. copyright reform in new interview.
Lewis Carroll’s Freedom of Information Bill 2013
Maybe it was the lateness of the hour or maybe it was just the effect of a couple of days of unexpected trouble but minister Brendan Howlin today told us why he wants to charge €15.00 in respect of FOI requests. The Minister was on his second day in Committee. The session had started with him announcing that he wanted to withdraw his controversial amendment to Section 12, multiplying Ireland’s FOI Fees. He wasn’t abandoning his plans, he had just […]
What price Freedom (of Information)
Brendan Howlin’s department is defending its plans to multiply FOI fees by relying on discredited figures originally produced by B. Ahern.
Freedom of Information: Fees to be multiplied in new amendment
As you may know, I made efforts this August to highlight a problem with Section 17 of the new Freedom of Information Bill. I pointed out that S17(4) sets out that Civil Servants could pretend that their computer files were made of paper. See “The Irish State wishes to uninvent computers with new FOI Bill” for how that worked. I also said that I thought the intent in this perverse legislative drafting was to deprive Gavin Sheridan of TheStory.ie of […]
Government gives welcome commitment to “look again” at data-hostile FOI provision
On Friday evening the Government was contacted by the the Office of the Information Commissioner (OIC) regarding Section 17(4) of the new Freedom of Information Bill. The OIC had called me earlier that day to discuss the concerns I’d expressed in my posts earlier in the week. At the end of my conversation with the OIC, Mr. Stephen Rafferty, a senior investigator at the OIC acknowledged that the wording of Section 17(4) was open to multiple interpretations. He said he […]
FOI Bill: The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform’s Right To Reply
I told the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform that if they would like to make a reply to my FOI Posts, I would publish it. You can read their response below. *** The FOI Act, like FOI Acts in other jurisdictions, provides for access to records which already exist and are held by public bodies consistent with the public interest and the right to privacy. The Act, similar to Acts in other jurisdictions, does not provide that in the […]