Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The next point I want to raise is the cost involved. I do not know if Mr. Dooley read the transcript of what the Minister, Deputy Howlin, said when he was before the committee. It is quite long and I will read one paragraph out of it. The Minister was responding to a series of questions and to one specifically from Deputy Fleming. He said:

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 [the Minister has to come back with more defined figures on this if he can] - of providing that information was €640 per request. As such, the fee charged covers only 4% of the cost of providing the information.

To return to an earlier point I made regarding a registered user fee, we all accept the validity of an open society where functions in the State can be questioned in detail.

It is also a fact that the media avail of freedom of information requests because they are in a competitive economic environment. There is a business model, so the Irish Independentneeds to get one up on the Irish Daily Mailand so forth. These freedom of information requests, therefore, are actually in a commercial arena and it is not just about seeking information. As Mr. Dooley said earlier, journalists do not own newspapers, but they are privately owned and must make a profit for their shareholders. Freedom of information requests are often a vehicle by which newspapers make money. Is there, at some level, a justification for charging the media for FOI requests?