Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

On the first question, the Deputy knows from the charts that the figures go up and down. While they came down initially after the changes in 2003, they wavered up and down in the period since then. At the beginning of this year, the figure was high and it was high in April. Some months the figure is low and some months it is high. It has levelled out at a trend over the past few years.

In May of this year, 130 additional public bodies and groups were brought within the scope of the Freedom of Information Act. Generally, unless there is some particular reason it should not be the case, any new agency would be covered by the Act.

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