Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This group of amendments substantially deals with fees. I accept some improvements have been made by the Minister since Committee Stage, and the improvements he intends to make when the draft statutory instrument is brought before the House for discussion should be helpful. I concur with Deputy Donnelly and I wish to highlight some issues which I ask the Minister to clarify when he responds.

I found the legislation as originally drafted, on which we were working when we submitted our amendments after Committee Stage, unclear. Some time ago the Minister gave us a draft text he proposed to introduce and we have had an opportunity to propose amendments to it. I did so but they have been ruled out of order. At present, section 27 states, "Subject to this section, a fee of such amount as may be appropriate having regard to this section shall be charged". It made specific provision for a charge. The statutory instrument specifies a €15 charge and people felt this charge could be zero. I do not know who stated this, I could have said it myself. It sounds like something I would have said, that it seemed as though the charge was being reduced to zero but not necessarily being abolished. The amendment tabled by the Minister will mean the section will read, "Such amount as may be appropriate having regard to the provisions of this section shall be charged". The first line makes it look as though section 27 allows for fees which "shall be charged by the FOI body concerned under this subsection and paid by the requester concerned to the body in respect of the grant of an FOI request".

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