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

The Minister is changing it. He is saying it was butchered in the past, but he is coming back to un-butcher it now. I just do not understand why he did not take this out. This provision jars in the case of a person seeking his or her own medical records. Many people have many medical issues and there can be substantial records. They could be on CD or other format. There was a time when patients went from the X-ray department carrying a big brown envelope, but now they get a disk to bring to the consultant in the room up the road, depending on the hospital, whether it is public or private as the case may be.

That is bad enough. While I accept there is provision for it not to be charged, it states that the person making the decision may take the means of the requestor into account. I accept it should be relatively easy to establish the means of a person in receipt of a social welfare payment because the deciding officer is entitled to conclude that if the requestor is in receipt of a payment from the Department of Social Protection his or her means have already been assessed and the Government is generally happy with that. However, for many people it is unfair that they should be charged for personal information. The Minister has done quite a good job in making amendments to the legislation, including abolishing the application fee. However, there was never an application fee for personal information. The Minister is now abolishing the application fee for non-personal information, but is still providing that a person seeking personal information may be charged certain retrieval fees, which jars with-----

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