Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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355. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality the reason for the delay until February 2020 in his Department providing the family of a person (details supplied) with a December 2017 Courts Service report that was directed to be furnished to them in May 2018 by the Attorney General, senior counsel and him; the reason a freedom of information application for this report was denied; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7798/20]

Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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I can inform the Deputy that my Department is in ongoing correspondence with the family in question about this issue and has provided what information is in its possession on the causes of the delay in releasing the documents to them. They have now been provided with the report, and Judge Haughton has agreed to include this report within the remit of his scoping exercise.

The Deputy is mistaken in the assertion that a freedom of information request for this report was denied. The report by the Courts Service was, in fact, provided under a Freedom of Information request and indeed was retrieved in the course of retrieving records for that request. Hard copy records had been provided to the requester. When the existence of additional paper records was discovered, including the report from the Courts Service, these records were also provided to the requester.