Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 44:

In page 32, to delete lines 30 to 39, and in page 33, to delete lines 1 to 6 and substitute the following:“(4) Where an FOI request relates to data contained in more than one record held on an electronic device by the FOI body concerned—

(a) subject to paragraph (b), the FOI body shall take reasonable steps to search for and extract the records to which the request relates, being steps that involve the use of any facility for electronic search or extraction that existed on the date of the request and was used by the FOI body in the ordinary course, and
(b) if the reasonable steps referred to in paragraph (a) result in the creation of a new record, that record shall, for the purposes of considering whether or not such new record should be disclosed in response to the request, be deemed to have been created on the date of receipt of the FOI request.”.

This amendment is being proposed to ensure the policy objective underlying the original provision in the Bill is delivered. The intention and implications of the original provision were questioned by some commentators following publication of the Bill. It was clear from their comments that there was confusion surrounding the provision as set out in the Bill. I want to address that issue.

The provision, as originally drafted and included in the published Bill, was designed to take account of technological developments since the 1997 Act in so far as the searching for and extracting records from data banks was concerned. We had a discussion about this issue on Second Stage. The provision was intended to confirm that FOI bodies were required to take reasonable steps to search for and extract electronic data using the search and extraction facility available to them, but they were not required to develop new programmes or code to interrogate databases. Since the current Act is silent on this issue, public bodies have found it necessary on occasion to have programmes coded to meet particular FOI requests which often do not seek particular official records but rather request information that can sometimes only be obtained by interrogating data banks of official information requiring analysis of the records contained in them.

In addition, the current legislation provides for access to official records which are available and do not require the creation of new records. This provision can represent an impediment in responding to FOI requests as the argument could be made that extracting information from a data bank of necessity required the creation of a new record. To continue to provide access to the extracted data from data banks of electronic records, the amendment allows bodies to reproduce the relevant data in a new record and in such cases the record shall be deemed to have been created on the date of receipt of the request. The proposed amendment is intended to make the same provision, but it uses more straightforward text.