Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Question 175: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the cost to his Department and each of its agencies of complying with their responsibilities under the Freedom of Information Acts; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2525/07]

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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Detailed costs of complying with Freedom of Information responsibilities are not generally kept by public bodies. As FOI has become more ingrained into the culture of public bodies, certain aspects of compliance such as record keeping practices, training and staff awareness are covered by the general staffing and administration costs of those bodies, and could not easily be separated out.

It is possible, however, to estimate the principal costs associated with supporting the Freedom of Information Act. The FOI Central Policy Unit in the Department of Finance estimates the cost of processing a single FOI request at €420. On this basis, the 71 requests processed by my Department in 2006 cost an estimated €29,820 to process. In addition, my Department has a dedicated FOI Unit which deals with the administration of FOI and the promotion of best practice. The estimated cost of running this unit in 2006 was €169,959.

There are 54 agencies under the aegis of my Department which are subject to FOI. Between them they received 83 FOI requests in 2006. Given the number of agencies, listing them individually is impractical for the purposes of this response, but if the Deputy so wishes I would be happy to supply a breakdown to her. On the basis of an estimated cost of €420 per request, these 83 FOI requests are estimated to have cost €34,860 to process. In addition, a number of agencies have dedicated FOI staff, and the estimated cost of maintaining these staff in 2006 was €343,018. Some of these dedicated staff costs may overlap with the cost of processing individual requests as some of these staff act as FOI decision makers. Additionally, a number of smaller agencies would not dedicate specific resources to FOI. Nevertheless, there will be a cost to those agencies arising from the general administration of FOI and these costs are not identified above.