Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour)
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Question 99: To ask the Minister for Finance his views on the statement by the Information Commissioner that use of the Freedom of Information Act 1997 has dropped to an all time low with only 1,000 FOI requests made in 2005 by journalists and her belief that this has been caused by the continued exclusion of a number of public bodies from the scope of the Act and by the introduction of fees in 2003; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19269/06]

Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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Latest figures show that over 14,600 FOI requests were made in 2005 compared to about 12,600 in 2004. The number of FOI requests made by journalists has also increased. According to the Information Commissioner's recent Annual Report, 963 requests were made by journalists in 2005, compared with 870 in 2004.

The level of FOI requests being made by journalists is still down on that witnessed in 2003 and previous years. I would not attribute this reduction to the fact that certain bodies are not subject to FOI. It would appear that the introduction of an 'up-front' fee of €15 in July 2003 has had an impact on the number of FOI requests being made by journalists. I have no proposals to review this fee, which I consider to be very modest when set against the cost of administering FOI requests. I certainly do not consider the fee to be a major deterrent to usage of the FOI Act by journalists.