Full coverage: Transparency

The Department of Agriculture must now release details of herds over 500 cattle. It could open up big questions over the impact of large farms on water as the EU eyes up closing the door on Ireland's nitrates derogation.

Swiss tax resident JP McManus’s hotel and golf resort stands to benefit most directly from up to €238m in State funding for the 2027 event, but the business doesn’t even disclose its owners.

The Government has been tapping up Irish business leaders in the US to join its new Strategic Economic Advisory Panel, but refuses to release details of members or how they may be influencing State policy.

Coillte recently refused to deal with a wave of environmental requests sent to it using movie character pseudonyms. The case has gone to the CJEU which will soon gives its opinion if requesters, including journalists, can access environmental information anonymously.

Dublin City Council blocked journalists’ requests for access to private emergency accommodation payments for almost a decade. The public procurement of multi-million-euro contracts should never be a state secret.

Bord na Mona, ESB and Coillte have faced criticism for regularly fighting against requests to release environmental information they hold. New decisions from Ireland’s information commissioner may reveal their spend on legal fees and shines a light on a broken system.

The full survey results, released this month after a four-year legal battle, tell little to nothing of what we don’t already know about the agency’s client base here. So why did it push back so hard?

A trilogy of reports released this week converge on the lack of accountability and transparency that landed the state broadcaster in the public gaze. Will their multitude of recommendations to make decisions clearer also make them better?

For decades, Government policy has been to outsource social housing to private landlords while telling them that they needn’t bother with common public supply transparency obligations. This is coming back to bite one of their own.

It is often said that Irish officialdom routinely favours landlords with better protection and more advantageous rules. The past year’s battle to obtain information on HAP recipients appears to confirm this.