Written answers
Thursday, 14 June 2018
Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Freedom of Information Data
Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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177. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of FOI requests his Department has received since January 2018; the number that were appealed, refused and granted, respectively; the costs that were applied; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25955/18]
Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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The Freedom of Information (FOI) 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 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, if a requester is unhappy with that decision, he/she has the right to appeal the decision to the OIC.
Number of FOI..... | 1 January 2018 to 11 June 2018 |
---|---|
Requests received | 188 |
Granted | 33 |
Part granted | 45 |
Refused | 22 |
Responded to outside of FOI | 27 |
Withdrawn | 16 |
Transferred | 4 |
Ongoing | 41 |
Decisions reviewed internally | 17 |
Decisions appealed to OIC | 8 |
The figure in the “ongoing” column arises as, under the FOI Act, my Department has in most cases four weeks to make a decision and issue a response. There are also a number of provisions in the FOI Act which allow for the completion of requests outside of the standard four week time frame including where the request is for a large number of records and the requirement for third party consultation.
The total fees applied under FOI legislation by my Department in respect of FOI requests received between 1 January 2018 and 11 June 2018 amounts to €350.
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