Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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173. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the number of freedom of information requests received by his Department that the Chief State Solicitor's office has incurred expenses on dealing with for each of the past three years and to date in 2017; and the amount of fees for counsel and other legal costs incurred respectively, for each of the past three years and to date in 2017. [12781/17]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Given the size of the Department of Social Protection, we receive a large number of FOI requests with some 6,438 requests received over the 3 years from 2014 to 2016. We therefore have a large number of FOI Officers processing requests throughout the organisation. The information requested by the Deputy is not routinely collected and cannot be compiled in the time available to reply to this parliamentary question. I will contact the Deputy with the information as soon as possible.