Thomas Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

What the Minister has set out in the draft guidelines is not as strong as the UK Information Commissioner’s approach, which is as follows:

Information held in non-work personal email accounts (e.g. Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail) may be subject to FOIA if it relates to the official business of the public authority. All such information which is held by someone who has a direct, formal connection with the public authority is potentially subject to FOIA regardless of whether it is held in an official or private email account.

I will leave it at that and withdraw the amendment, but it is an important issue that requires more attention.