Sweet FoI All
Freedom of Information legislation in Ireland is broken and Simon Coveney showed us just how broken it is
Politics is full of clichés. From political commentary to politics itself we’ve seen it all before, repeating again and again. Marx’s adage about history and farce has become redundant as we’ve long passed the stage of absurdity. Instead we’ve come to accept the latest political news with a resigned sigh and a general lack of surprise at the latest grasping avarice or mendacity. Apathy, corruption, and stupidity on the part of our leaders has become commonplace so why should anything surprise us?
Apparently some in the government took this to heart, specifically Simon Coveney and Leo Varadkar. It appears they believed they could give their old political companion, Katherine Zappone, a nice sinecure in New York as UN special envoy for freedom of expression. Given her dual citizenship of Ireland and the US, as well as her years of experience as an LGBTQIA+ activist and politician, she was made for the position is what we were told. No one would baulk at such an appointment, surely?
Unfortunately for them most realised that something shady was afoot. A position which didn’t previously exist, and which had some nice benefits to go along with it, was created out of thin air. Most of us would roll our eyes at hearing this; more of the same for Irish politics. But then it was revealed that Zappone had held a party in the Merrion Hotel six days before it was announced she was being given this new position and which Varadkar attended.
It didn’t stop there.
The medium is the message
Not long afterwards it came out that Coveney, Varadkar, and Zappone had been exchanging texts with each other regarding the latter’s new UN position. Rather conveniently journalists who had made Freedom of Information (FoI) requests for the correspondence had been told it didn’t exist only for both Coveney’s and Varadkar’s respective departments to release the messages in question. Having failed to quell the anger at an Oireachtas committee last week, Coveney made a second appearance on Tuesday 7 September.
Some point to the arrogance of politicians. That wasn’t on display in the Oireachtas when Coveney gave his excuses. What was jaw-dropping wasn’t his arrogance. It was the entirely mundane way in which he admitted deleting messages from his phone when he felt certain conversations had reached a natural conclusion. You see, the government is legally required to retain records pertaining to governing. The idea is that it makes the whole process transparent via FoI requests which citizens and journalists can then make in order to obtain the records. Or, at the very least, get a reasonable excuse as to why they can’t be given the records in question.
Coveney freely admitted to completely undermining this process. He told the committee that any FoI requests for the correspondence regarding the entire Zappone affair had been made after he deleted the messages in question. If that wasn’t enough, he also said “I delete information from my phone that isn’t relevant”.
In his mind this is perfectly acceptable. He said it as matter of factly as if he said he was putting his washing on the clothesline. But this is the equivalent of a business saying it didn’t keep any financial records for the previous financial year because it wasn’t asked for them yet. He doesn’t get to decide what’s “relevant”. Under the FoI Act everything pertaining to government business has to be retained. It doesn’t matter when the FoI requests came in. That’s why it’s all supposed to be saved: So that the deciding officer for the FoI request can parse the records to see what’s relevant according to the legislation. Alas, our minister for foreign affairs thinks differently.
The saga is far from over. Coveney’s appearance in front of the Oireachtas Committee raised even more questions. Included in this is whether or not Zappone will grace the committee with her presence in the coming weeks. So far her plan has been to stay quiet and let Coveney and Varadkar take the heat.
And heat it is. Irish people have dealt with a lot over the last 19 months. They’ve been patient despite the many hits they’ve taken. If this was anywhere else the entire fiasco would have had a real chance of taking down at least one minister and possibly the entire government. It’s hard to imagine how Micheal Martin could allow Coveney or Varadkar to continue in their current roles. Unfortunately for us he appears to be content with their explanations, for now.
But who knows what the next few days and weeks hold. Martin might come under enough pressure from his own party to remove one of the two text fiends from their ministry. And, if we’re lucky, he’ll let them know via text message.