Derek McDowell (Labour)

Only the failure to pay a fee in the past 12 months should be taken into account when refusing an application, rather than trawling through someone's record in the distant past.

In the early months of the operation of the Act, I applied to the Department of Finance for records concerning regionalisation. I received a demand for a considerable sum of money from a section of the Department. I approached the section again and asked if it felt it was appropriate for me to apply to the Department of Finance for money so that I could pay it back to the Department of Finance to allow me to do my job. In any event the fee was waived, but no doubt it blots my copybook and, in theory, I could be refused a request. It is reasonable to take someone's immediate record in failing to pay a fee into account, but there should also be a cut-off point.