John Gerard Hanafin (Fianna Fail)

I have found that Departments give reasoned responses and it is rare that something would be found under the Freedom of Information Act to justify a decision, so we must consider vexatious claims.

The purpose of the Freedom of Information Act 1997 is to confer rights on members of the public to obtain access to official information to the greatest extent possible consistent with the public interest and the right to privacy. The principles underlying freedom of information included the following: citizens, as shareholders in public bodies, should have the right to examine and review the deliberations and processes of public bodies; every individual should have the right to know what information is held in Government records about him or her, to inspect files held about or relating to him or her and to have inaccurate material on file corrected; groups and individuals who are affected by decisions of public bodies should have the right to know the criteria used in making those decisions; and decisions by public bodies should be more open to public scrutiny, thus providing greater appreciation of the issues involved in policy decisions and stronger public ownership and acceptance of decisions made.

The Freedom of Information Act 1997 was supplemented in 2003 by the Freedom of Information (Amendment) Act 2003. A number of regulations have been also made under the Act since 1998. Freedom of information currently applies to more than 500 public bodies through an ongoing programme of freedom of information extension.

The Freedom of Information Act establishes three statutory rights, namely, a legal right for each person to access information held by public bodies, a legal right for each person to have official information relating to himself or herself amended where it is incomplete, incorrect or misleading, and a legal right to obtain reasons for decisions particularly affecting oneself. Regulations made in 2003 provide parents, guardians and next of kin with rights under sections 17 and 18 on behalf of an individual.

On the main features of the Act, a person can seek information from any public body covered by the Act by sending a written request to that body. The Act specifies that requests must specify they are under the Freedom of Information Act, be clear enough to enable the public body to identify the records sought, and, unless the request is for personal information, be accompanied by a fee of €15, or €10 in the case of a medical card holder. In cases where the public body is not clear as to the records being requested, staff are obliged to endeavour to assist the requester in identifying the relevant records.

Public bodies will normally have up to four weeks in which to respond to a request. There is provision to extend this timeline by a further four weeks under certain circumstances. Any official information held by public bodies listed in the First Schedule of the Act can be sought under the Act. However, to allow Government business to be properly conducted, it is necessary to exempt from release certain types of information in some circumstances. These exemptions are set out in Part III of the Act.

Among the key exemptions are records relating to meetings of the Government, deliberations of public bodies, investigative functions and negotiations, law enforcement and security, confidential and commercially sensitive information, personal information, that is, information other than the information relating to the person making the request, and the economic interests of the State. Most of these exemptions are not absolute. In most cases, information may be withheld only if it can be demonstrated that a specific harm or injury would arise from disclosure. Many are subject to an overall test of whether disclosure would be in the public interest.

There is a right to appeal. In the event of a request being refused, requesters can appeal to have the decision reviewed by someone more senior than the person who made the original decision. This process is known as internal review. The reviewer can uphold, vary or annul the original decision. Internal review must be completed within three weeks. If the requester is still unhappy with the decision, he or she has the right to appeal the decision to the independent Office of the Information Commissioner.

Application for appeals for non-personal information must be accompanied by the appropriate fee, namely, €75 for internal review or €25 for medical card holders and €150 for an appeal to the Information Commissioner or €50 for medical card holders. Further rights of appeal to the High Court and the Supreme Court are available to parties affected by a decision of the Information Commissioner.

In July 2003, a new system of fees was introduced. This requires a requester to pay a €15 fee up-front if the request is for non-personal information. An internal and external appeal of a decision on such a request attracts fees of €75 and €150, respectively. There are reductions for medical card holders. The introduction of some form of up-front fee arrangement was recommended by a high level group of Secretaries General which reviewed the operation of the original Freedom of Information Act in 2002. Provision for such fees was included in the Freedom of Information (Amendment) Act 2003, which came into force in April of that year.

In general, the fees were designed to encourage a greater appreciation of the cost of administering the Freedom of Information Act by public bodies while ensuring that people can continue to have access to information. The average cost of processing a single freedom of information request has been estimated in the past at approximately €425. No doubt that figure has increased to more than €500.

The fees also provide enhanced protection for public bodies, and the taxpayer, against those few individuals who might choose to use the Freedom of Information Act in a questionable way. There were examples of such usage prior to the introduction of up-front fees, which had resulted in considerable costs and disruption. In one case, as the Minister mentioned, in a relatively short period one individual made 466 freedom of information requests, 101 internal review applications and 35 appeals to the Information Commissioner. A total of 194 of the requests were to a single public body. The total cost of these applications was estimated at the time to be in excess of €127,000.

There has not been a major fall-off in people making freedom of information requests. When the Act came into force it was expected there would be a large number of requests. That was reflected in the fact that in 2003, 18,443 people made requests, in 2004, the figure was 12,500, in 2005 it was 14,616, in 2006 it was 11,800, and in 2007 it was 10,708. A significant volume of people, therefore, still have genuine reasons for requesting information but the changes suggested in the Labour Party motion are unnecessary. For obvious reasons of security, health, business and Cabinet confidentiality there had to be certain restrictions, and those are at a minimum.