Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 10 January 2013

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform

Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill: Discussion with Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform

2:40 pm

Photo of Brendan HowlinBrendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Fleming for his questions and for taking the considerable trouble of drafting his own Bill, which was helpful in terms of allowing debate on the issue prior to finalisation by Government of its own Bill and in pushing the hands of Government, which is a useful thing to do on issues of importance. I was glad to be able to accept it.

My officials will take note of everything said today. On fees, the bulk of applications are for personal information in respect of which no fees accrue. Some 70% of all applications fall into that category. As such, only 30% of freedom of information requests accrue a fee. I will have my officials check the fees' value and so on. In 2011, the totality of fees divided by the number of actual FOI requests which were non-personal generated an average charge of €23. The actual cost - these are not absolute figures - of providing that information was €640 per request. As such, the fee charged covers only 4% of the cost of providing the information. Whether fees should be open is a moot point. There are people who stay up late at night submitting numbers of freedom of information requests on their computers, which often overwhelms systems. In my view some level of break is reasonable. However, I am willing to hear views on the issue. I believe the initial fee system, which is modest, remains appropriate. I am more concerned about fees in the appeals mechanism, which, in my opinion, ratchet up too quickly. This is a definite disincentive to people whose requests are refused making further requests. I propose to significantly modify the fees that apply in respect of appeals. I believe that is the sensible way to go. As I said, the views of everybody on these matters will be taken into account.

On the Deputy's point about search and retrieval, I believe he made that point rather effectively when introducing his Bill. I am minded to agree with him that fees should not be allowed to be ratcheted up to such an amount which discourages people. I am not adverse to supporting the notion of a cap in this regard. For information, I will provide the Deputy with the data on this. In 2011, the average search and retrieval fee charged for non-personal data was €7.42. Obviously, one gets very little actual public service time for €7.42, which is less than the hourly minimum wage rate. A realistic and modest fee should be charged. However, the Deputy's point, in terms of a cap, is well made.

The Deputy also made a valid point in relation to exemptions, which I will look at again. On his point in regard new bodies automatically coming within the scope of FOI, we are in this legislation adopting the approach taken in the ombudsman legislation which means new public bodies will be presumed to be encompassed.

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