Mr. Ken Foxe:

For me this is one of the major issues with the legislation that has not been dealt with, along with cost - the inconsistency and arbitrary nature of decisions. The legislation is being extended to other bodies such as NAMA and An Garda Síochána and that is welcome but many journalists would be fearful, having dealt with those organisations in their day to day work with routine media queries, about how well they would administer the FOI legislation.

This extension of legislation to other bodies gives a perception the current operation of FOI within existing bodies is satisfactory and this is anything but the case. Any journalist who has ever dealt with the Department of Justice and Equality or the Health Service Executive knows this is not the case because deadlines are repeatedly missed, arbitrary decisions are made or information is released up to a year after the original request. I frequently submit the same FOI request to 15 different Departments. People might consider that vexatious - I do not - but perhaps ten will answer in a satisfactory manner and two or three might send me some parliamentary questions that do not answer the specific query and one might tell me the information is voluminous while the other will flatly refuse the request. Am I to appeal every unsatisfactory decision that is made? Is it somehow a victory that this new legislation will make that slightly cheaper?

A very important aspect of the legislation that already exists but that has not been highlighted is oversight of the FOI system so decisions are looked at by another body. This is a better mechanism for appealing and State bodies and organisations that repeatedly fail to deal with FOI queries satisfactorily would be investigated.