Less than one-third of the 281 known documents held by the State relevant to the Government's indemnity agreement with religious congregations have been released to The Irish Times following requests under the Freedom of Information Act.
None has been released by the Attorney General's Office and just one (of 48) by the Department of the Taoiseach.
According to Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairman Mr John Perry TD last night, the PAC's access to documentation is also bound by the terms of the Freedom of Information Act, although it has powers of compellability.
At least one document refused to The Irish Times by the Department of Education and Science was released to this newspaper by the Department of Finance. It was a letter from the Department of Education to the Attorney General's Office on January 31st, 2002, outlining the "deal in principle" agreed by the then Minister for Education, Dr Woods, and Department secretary general Mr John Dennehy with the congregations and their counsel on January 7th.
The Department refused to release it to The Irish Times as it "would be exempt from production in proceedings in a court on the grounds of legal professional privilege" (Section 22 (1) (a) of the Freedom of Information Act). This reason was given for refusing all other correspondence involving the Attorney General's office and the Department.
More peculiar was the release by the Department of Finance of a document, which gave details of a meeting attended by officials from the Departments of Education and Finance, the Attorney General's Office and the Tánaiste's office on February 1st, 2001, at which Mr Dennehy reported that the bishops wanted any compensation scheme "to cover claims by altar boys against the clergy". It was decided "this was out of the question".
There is no record of this meeting or of Mr Dennehy's report on Department of Education files.
The Department of Education has acknowledged possessing 151 documents relevant to the negotiations with the congregations but released just 63, while the Department of Finance has 82 such documents and released 29, with another 16 part-granted.
Both the Departments of the Taoiseach and Finance relied heavily on confidentiality clauses in the Act for refusing to release documentation. The clause is also cited regularly by the Department of Education.
Most frequently quoted as grounds for refusal is that "access to a record of the Government, other than a record by which a decision of the Government is published, may be refused".
Similarly, "access to a record which has been or is proposed to be submitted to Government for their consideration and was created for that purpose may be refused".
The Department of Education refused 14 documents dealing with property valuations on grounds of confidentiality and commercial sensitivity.
