Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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412. To ask the Minister for Social Protection her views on a matter relating to a freedom of information request received by her Department (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [8228/14]

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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The current Freedom of Information (FOI) procedure in the Department is that a FOI request by persons seeking a copy of their carer's allowance file is dealt with by two separate areas of the Department. Carer's allowance section deal with the general file for the carer. The medical review and assessment section, as owners of the data, deals with the medical records of the care recipient. The medical details of the care recipient may be released to the carer only if there is specific written authorisation from the care recipient.

For reporting purposes to the Department of Public Expenditure & Reform, this type of request is counted as one FOI request.

The Department's decisions advisory office & FOI unit has developed a new IT application that will enable the coordination of multi-component FOI requests. This will ensure that, in the future, all of the elements of the FOI request will be co-ordinated and responded to as one request. The planned implementation of the new FOI application is early March 2014.