FF still continue to hide expenses from the public.

[Digout]

The lads over on thestory.ie have come up with a very smart way to ask for a list of expenses paid for with your money.

Basically, all the expenses are stored in a database. So, why not ask for the entire database? Also, as its an off the shelf database packages used, they have offered to help the civil servants in getting all the data out of the database is they feel it will take to long, or they cant do it. Thestory.ie even offered to go in and help outside of office hours if the civil servants felt that that dumping the contents of the database would make it run slower or be unavailable if the dump was done during office hours.

Seeing as the actual database is public property, and the data is public property, surely it can be expected that this would be a no brainer ?


Thestory.ie also asked for the ID numbers of each expense ( in most databases ID's run sequentially, so it would be easy to see if certain expenses were removed), again, the civil servants dont want to release this.

This article is well worth reading if you want to understand just how far FF will go to hide information from the public.

Database FOIs – The Story

[DCon]

The lads over on thestory.ie have come up with a very smart way to ask for a list of expenses paid for with your money.

Basically, all the expenses are stored in a database. So, why not ask for the entire database? Also, as its an off the shelf database packages used, they have offered to help the civil servants in getting all the data out of the database is they feel it will take to long, or they cant do it. Thestory.ie even offered to go in and help outside of office hours if the civil servants felt that that dumping the contents of the database would make it run slower or be unavailable if the dump was done during office hours.

Seeing as the actual database is public property, and the data is public property, surely it can be expected that this would be a no brainer ?


Thestory.ie also asked for the ID numbers of each expense ( in most databases ID's run sequentially, so it would be easy to see if certain expenses were removed), again, the civil servants dont want to release this.

This article is well worth reading if you want to understand just how far FF will go to hide information from the public.

Database FOIs – The Story

Cowen will be changing the FOI legislation soon, no doubt, to keep things hidden

Fast forward to the year 2009, and the Taoiseach Brian Cowen is grumbling: "I have no problem whatsoever with the legitimate use of the Freedom of Information Act . . . However, the idea of the department trawling every question that comes in from people who, perhaps, regard the departments of State as a source for generating information was not within the contemplation of the Freedom of Information Act and, to be honest, is abuse of the process."

Politicians and limousines - Editorial, Opinion - Independent.ie

[Digout]

FF must be getting worried now. People with IT knowledge can extract this information from databases in no time at all. Maybe they will have to go back to pen and paper to record expenses?

[Toland]

Well spotted, Digout.

[laidback]

wasn't there something in the newly negotiated programme for govt FF and Greens about keeping FOI fees at €15 - currently dept are asking much more to deter requests.

Now FOi is throwing up interesting info on Gormless (thanks to ken Foxe and sunday tribune) and limos and turning up money and €9000 on his website etc so he may not push to have this commitment implemented?

[Digout]

Well, the €15 quid is one thing, but FF then charge per hour for the retrieval of the information. Seeing as its all stored in a database, the time should be the time spend writing the queries to get the information from the database. As thestory.ie have pointed out, they can write the queries if the dept dont have the time or the expertise to do it.

FF are running out of excuses.

[ang]

Some interesting expenses here:-

Politicians' Capetown bill tallied to €86,000 - National News, Frontpage - Independent.ie

Some of them were given expenses in advance, just incase they were short of cash.

[greengoose2]

FF must be getting worried now. People with IT knowledge can extract this information from databases in no time at all. Maybe they will have to go back to pen and paper to record expenses?

Ah, silly aul pencils is it? Bert wanted us to move on from that...

[Digout]

Ah, silly aul pencils is it? Bert wanted us to move on from that...

Could not even get the evoting correct, an evidence trail was needed there, and now systems that have an evidence trail, well, they dont like them.