Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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86. To ask the Taoiseach the legal fees incurred on freedom of information, FOI, requests received by his Department; and the staff hours involved in the processing of FOI requests for the past three years. [9685/17]

Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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My Department did not incur any legal fees processing Freedom of Information (FOI) requests in the past three years. When my Department requires legal advice in relation to FOI issues it is obtained from the Office of the Attorney General.

The number of staff hours spent on processing FOI requests in my Department is not recorded centrally. It spans a wide cohort of staff involved in the coordination of requests, staff across all multiple divisions routinely searching and retrieving records and individual decision makers and support staff. Recording time spent on processing requests is strictly required where charges may apply when time spent on search and retrieval exceeds five hours. No such charges arose in 2017.

It is worth noting that since the introduction of the Freedom of Information Act 2014, the number of requests has increased over the past three years trebling from 92 in 2013 to 275 in 2016.