Ms Emily O'Reilly:

I do not know. It would be wrong of me to suggest reasons and obviously those in the Department will have an opportunity to speak for themselves. I imagine that events post-2008 diverted attention away from these matters. I have observed from 2003 onwards and most of my early years as Information Commissioner that there was no great enthusiasm for FOI legislation throughout the public administration and that this seeped through it. I do not think officials who might have been charged with undertaking these tasks necessarily thought they were going to get into trouble if they were a little late in returning them. It was the general view of FOI legislation at the time that it was not a priority and, therefore, issues such as producing these reports which I, as Information Commissioner, regard as very important were put on the back burner, but it will be down to the individual Departments involved to comment on this.