Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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158. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the number of freedom of information requests in which his Department made a decision to deny; and the number in which the Information Commissioner overturned the decision of his Department in each of the years 2016 to 2018 and to date in 2019. [51466/19]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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The following table sets out the number of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests received by my Department from 2016 to date, the number of requests that were refused, the number of requests that were partially granted and the number of requests in which a decision of the Department has been overturned by the Office of the Information Commissioner (OIC) to date.

With regard to the reasons for the refusal of FOI requests, the processing of all FOI requests in the Department is done in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2014. That Act makes provision for access, to the greatest extent possible consistent with the public interest and the right to privacy, to records in the possession of public bodies such as my Department. As the Deputy will be aware, specific exemptions are set out in the legislation and these are applied by the Department where appropriate.