Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I have an open mind on the fees issue. I do not want the systems to be overwhelmed by people submitting reams of freedom of information requests. However, many people have overcome the fee structure by simply submitting multiple requests in a number of subsets under a single freedom of information request. It is a moot point. We are now in a situation where we want administration in general to be efficient and not overwhelmed with freedom of information requests, and even the hundreds of parliamentary questions that come to the Department, for information that is readily available on the website if people would just refer to it. We live in a very transparent world and we can put more information on the website about our activities. I put the minutes of the management committee meetings of my Department on the website as well as information on all acquisitions over €20,000, invoices and so forth. More information is available but it is still sought in freedom of information requests. Incidentally, 15% of the non-personal requests are from the media and quite often one will see a large headline in a newspaper over information that has been on the website for the last six months. It is already in the public domain if anybody bothered to look for it. They think, however, that if they leverage it through a freedom of information request it adds a certain spice to it. That appears to be the case in some areas.

There is a review of the freedom of information procedure, as I indicated in my speech, and these are the matters on which I would like to have information. Having looked at what we said when we were in opposition, the information I have received and the analysis I carried out of actual costs, my decision was that where we need to make change is not on the base cost, which is relatively modest, but on the appeals cost, which is prohibitively high.