Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

149. To ask the Taoiseach the number of Freedom of Information requests received by his Department in 2015 to date, in tabular form; the number of such requests where the period of consideration, was completed within four weeks of the receipt of the request; was extended by up to four weeks because the necessary resources to complete the request within the original time frame were not available. [36739/15]

Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

My Department received 258 Freedom of Information requests from January to October this year, of which 54 are currently ongoing for which replies will issue in due course.

Of the remaining 204 requests, replies issued to 121 requests issued within four weeks of the receipt of the request. Of the remainder, some had the deadline extended under the Act where search and retrieval costs arise or third party consultations occur. In a small number of cases a formal notification under the Act issued to the requester where the request involved a large number of records. In other cases deadlines were extended for a few days by agreement with requesters while in others the replies missed the deadline by a small number of days only.

My Department is committed to meeting its obligations under the FOI Act 2014, including responding to FOI requests within the specified timeframes, and is working to ensure that the level of late replies is kept to the minimum.