Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

In my Department, out of a total of 1,143 freedom of information requests received to date, 94 were received for internal review. As I stated earlier, the personal cases, which many of these would be, would not be covered. In my Department, since the introduction of the Freedom of Information Act seven and a half years ago, a total of 13 requests have been investigated by the Information Commissioner. We are talking about 1% or thereabouts.

In case I confused the Deputy, we charge for the internal review of non-personal cases. There is not a high number of such cases. We try to satisfy the respondents in the first case to avoid that decision.

On the Deputy's first question, there were definitely a small number of individuals, either acting for themselves or acting as agents and trying to make a business out of this, who were submitting a significant number of freedom of information requests in the early years. Many requests arose because this was the first time freedom of information was available and people wanted to know details about the past, about process and about systems. There are only so many such questions. People wanted to find out about internal reviews for promotion and what happened in various internal circumstances relating to human resource issues. Once answered, such requests are answered. There is no great change or difference about those. People wanted information on circulars and what circulars governed procurement issues, contract issues and so on. Requests for such information are not repeated once the requests are fulfilled.

On the changes made to the Act in 2003, the status quo was maintained on the ten-year rule for release of Cabinet records. No Secretary General certificates have been issued and no designated Cabinet working papers have been certified. In the case of protection for inter-ministerial communications relating to Cabinet discussions, it can reasonably be said to have had a significant impact on the volume of freedom of information requests. None of the other areas saw changes. Therefore, it cannot be any of these areas. It is hardly due to the initial cost. That is my view of it.

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