Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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137. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the number of freedom of information requests the Department has received in the past eight years; the number of 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 on which the information commissioner ruled in favour of the person requesting the freedom of information; the number on which the information commissioner ruled against the Department; the number the Department appealed to the High Court; the number on which the High Court ruled against the Department in favour of the applicant; the number which were then brought to the Court of Appeal by the Department; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9292/18]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The Office of the Information Commissioner keeps the operation of the Freedom of Information Act under review and publishes relevant statistics in its Annual Reports. I am pleased to inform the Deputy that, to date, for the 1,096 freedom of information requests received by my Department in the period 2010 to 2017 inclusive the Office of the Information Commissioner did not vary or annul any Department decisions referred to that Office for investigation. The question of my Department appealing decisions of the Information Commissioner to the High Court or to the Court of Appeal does not therefore arise.

The information requested by the Deputy for the eight year period in question is set out in the table.

* Three appeals remain under consideration by the Office of the Information Commissioner