Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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757. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the legal fees incurred on FOI requests received by his Department; the staff hours involved in the processing of FOI requests for the past three years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9686/17]

Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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In reply to the first part of the Deputy's question, there were no costs incurred for legal fees in respect of FOI matters in the Department.#

The reply to the second part is as follows: the estimated total hours spent on processing requests in 2014 was 1,669; in 2015 was 2,273; and in 2016 was 3,181.

These total figures are broken down further in the following tables. The first table provides details for staff centrally processing Requests in the Department FOI Unit, and the second provides for subsequent processing by Decision Makers and those who assist them. In my Department Higher Executive Officers are delegated to be Decision Makers under FOI.

I wish to note that because time spent processing FOI requests forms part of the usual duties of officials and is not required to be monitored, the details provided are estimates.

Table 1: Processing FOI Requests in the Department FOI Unit

Table 2: Processing FOI Requests by Decision Makers