Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein)
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222. To ask the Minister for Employment Affairs and Social Protection the number of freedom of information requests being processed by her Department; the number that have had the deadline for reply extended; the number at least one week, two weeks. one month and more than one month overdue, respectively; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19350/20]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Since the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) was introduced in March last, over 1.2 million applications in respect of 800,000 people have been received and, to date, almost 7.8 million payments have issued.

Against the backdrop of the very high volume of PUP claims, the Department has continued to register and acknowledge FOI requests and to contact requestors to explain that it may not be possible during the Covid crisis to deal with their requests within existing deadlines.

While I recognise that this can cause difficulties for some, I am grateful for the level of understanding that has been shown by many requestors.

The Department has received 1,012 FOI requests in 2020 and is currently processing 79 requests, of which 1 has the deadline extended under section 14 of the FOI Act 2014. The Department continues to deal with 4 FOI requests which have not been replied to by the due date. Details are provided in the tabular form below.

I hope this clarifies the position for the Deputy.

Status of FOI Requests within Department of Social Protection 2020