Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The average cost is €600 and we are asking for a contribution towards that of €15, which is modest. Deputy Dara Murphy made a compelling and clear case that there should be fees. He is correct that in the context of my Ministry it is reasonable that I would ask for a contribution to maintain it. He made a much more profound and important point, namely, about the automatic publication of data. That is the direction in which we are going. Embedded in the legislation is a move towards having open data. I hope that in ten years’ time FOI will be a resort most people will not have to reach. The default system is that information should be published. We are working towards that now as part of the Open Government Partnership. I have asked the chief information officer to work on systems that will allow that to happen. We are working in my Department to do that.

The final point Deputy Murphy made, which is a very good one, is that the main users other the general public seeking personal information are journalists. By and large, it would rank against the need of journalists to have open data because they want to have their own ownership of the data because if it is not an exclusive for them and everyone has the information, it is not worth printing. We must reflect on how we have open data.