Michael Ahern (Cork East, Fianna Fail)

The purpose of this section is to provide for an amendment to section 7 of the principal Act. It provides that a member of the public can withdraw a request, as set out in section 5 of the Bill. This is in line with provisions in section 14(8) and 34(5) in the principal Act whereby a member of the public may withdraw an application for internal or external review by the Information Commissioner. This amendment also provides for the head of a public body to notify a member of public in writing that the request has been withdrawn. A substantial number of freedom of information requests are withdrawn and are reported as such for statistical purposes.