Dara Murphy (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The document the Minister gave us is interesting. The request selected by Deputy Boyd Barrett is interesting. Some of the questions in FOI/2013/1882 are linked. Given that it is being re-examined, could the Minister take this as an example? I estimate that the cost of the request would be somewhere between €60 and €90. It would be interesting when the Minister comes up with the changes to take this as an example and to say that it would end up costing whatever amount. Equally, the public would be interested if he could tell us the cost to the Exchequer of compiling information. Every body that has a FOI officer is a public body. The cost to a journalist or someone else would be between €60 and €90 by my reckoning. If the Minister could provide the information I would love to see what the taxpayer will pay for it.

Many of the requests are very good. I do not wish to create any ripples with journalists as most of my best friends are journalists, but is there any scope once a request is returned that at some point it would be published?

It may even be possible to have a lag or whatever and then that it would be republished the following year. If it is worth finding and publishing in 2013, it probably is worth publishing in 2014 and 2015. Many of course are once-off requests about specific events about the Presidency or whatever but this reverts to the point I made on managing the supply of information and it may be a starting point to consider.