The politician's challenge to ask the right question was highlighted yesterday during Dáil committee exchanges on the cost of running the government jet.
Mr Paul McGrath (FG, Westmeath) pointed to the difference between one minister's answer some years ago to a parliamentary question on the expense of the jet and the "dramatically different" real cost.
But the Minister of State for Enterprise, Mr Michael Ahern, defended the answer and provoked some hilarity when he said it did give a cost - the cost of fuel.
Mr McGrath was using the example, dated before the original Act was passed, to criticise the new Freedom of Information legislation. It will prevent access under FoI requests to ministers' background and briefing notes for parliamentary questions.
He said a civil servant's briefing note had given the cost of running the jet, but the minister did not state it. The true price was "multiples" of the answer. "Isn't it right that the public should know the real information?" he asked.
Mr Ahern said that it was the "cost of the fuel per hour".
Mr McGrath: "Are you saying that the cost of running a car - we'd know more about cars than planes - is only the petrol?"
Mr Ahern: "If you rented a car, the only cost is the petrol."
Ms Joan Burton, Labour's finance spokeswoman: "So if the Government leases a jet, the only cost is the fuel?" Mr Richard Bruton, Fine Gael's finance spokesman, said "we now know very clearly what the outcome" of this legislation would be. No other costs would be stated and politicians would be left "knee-deep in shit ... and in the dark".
