Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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122. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of freedom of information requests made to his Department in each of the years 2016 to 2018 and to date in 2019; the number of requests fully denied by reason; the number of requests partially denied; the number of appeals made against denials; the number of such appeals upheld; the number of such appeals rejected; the number of requests that required a fee; the amount received for freedom of information requests in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [50595/19]

Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael)
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My Department reports annually to both the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the Office of the Information Commissioner on Freedom of Information activity. The Office of the Information Commissioner publish this data in its annual report and the annual reports up to 2018 are available on the OIC’s website -

To date in 2019 the data is as follows:

Total FOIs received 2019 does not include to date includes 20 live FOIs carried over from 2018.

- Of the 19 cases appealed for internal review, the decision by my Department was upheld in 12, 3 were partially overturned, 3 were withdrawn by the requester and 1 remains open.

- Of the 5 cases appealed to the Information Commissioner, 4 are ongoing and the OIC overturned the department’s decision on the fifth.

- Where fees are applicable, my department will engage requesters to refine the scope of the request so that fees do not fall due in line with section 27 of the FOI Act. To date 216 euro in search & retrieval fees has been applied.