Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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492. To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht the legal fees incurred on FOI requests received by her Department; the staff hours involved in the processing of FOI requests for the past three years; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [9672/17]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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My Department has not incurred any legal fees on FOI requests received during the period in question.

Dealing with FOI requests is part of the usual duties of officials and the time spent on processing such requests is not monitored separately. However, I am advised that an exercise carried out by my officials in 2016 on a sample number of cases suggested that an overall average of twelve hours staff time is spent on the processing of each FOI request received.

The total number of FOI requests received in each of the years in question is set out below. For completeness, non-legal charges in respect of the search, retrieval and other costs incurred in responding to these FOI requests were levied in respect of one FOI request in each of these years.