Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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533. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of freedom of information requests his Department has received in the past eight years; the number which were accepted without further escalation and not accepted respectively; the number requested which were not accepted that were escalated to the Information Commissioner; the number which the Information Commissioner ruled in favour of the person requesting the freedom of information; the number which the Information Commissioner ruled against his Department; the number his Department appealed to the High Court; the number the High Court ruled against his Department in favour of the applicant; the number which were then brought to the Court of Appeal by his Department; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9285/18]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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The Freedom of Information data requested is set out in the following table.

In relation to your request for data concerning appeals, I have included data on both internal reviews carried out by more senior members of staff within my Department and on appeals to the Office of the Information Commissioner (OIC).

If a requester is not satisfied with the response of my Department to any aspect of his/her request for information he/she can seek to have the decision re-examined. The internal review of an FOI decision is carried out by a more senior member of staff within my Department. Following the outcome of the internal review of the decision, if a requester is still unhappy with the decision, he/she has the right to appeal the decision to the OIC.

My Department did not appeal any of the OIC decisions in question to the High Court.