Seán Kenny (Dublin North East, Labour)
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To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform his plans to reduce the search and retrieval fees in the Freedom of Information Act; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44328/12]

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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The Deputy may wish to note that the average search and retrieval charge in 2011 for a non-personal Freedom of Information request was €7.42, just over one third of the hourly rate of €20.95, a fee which has been unchanged since the introduction of the Freedom of Information Act 1997.

The Deputy may be aware that in the statement I issued on 11 July 2012 communicating the Government’s decision on the reform and extension of Freedom of Information, I announced that I had also asked my Department to undertake a focused review of the management of Freedom of Information requests by public bodies to determine what improvements in the working of the Act could be achieved and what steps may be necessary to seek to promote good practice in the use of the Act. This review will provide the opportunity to assess the effectiveness of the current regime for search and retrieval fees; taking into account, for example, the proposal included in the Private Member’s Bill on Freedom of Information on which the Second Stage debate in the Dáil took place on 6 July 2012.