Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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156. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the amount expended by IDA Ireland on external legal fees associated with freedom of information cases in each of 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and to date in 2024, in tabular form, to include service provider name (details supplied). [39967/24]

Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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The table below outlines the expenditure in the past five years by the IDA Ireland on external legal fees for an FOI case concerning the release of a client survey to Byrne Wallace LLP:

The table below outlines the expenditure in the past five years by the IDA Ireland on external legal fees to McCann Fitzgerald LLP for an FOI case concerning a land deal in Co. Louth:

I can confirm that IDA Ireland did not abandon the client survey case. In this instance IDA Ireland appealed a decision of the Office of the Information Commissioner (OIC) to the High Court. The matter was listed for hearing in January 2023. The matter was settled, with a High Court Order being made that the decision of the OIC be set aside and the matter remitted to the OIC, to be assigned to a different OIC investigator. No order was made as to costs in the case, with each side bearing their own legal costs. The legal costs figure set out above in respect of this matter includes the costs of this High Court appeal.

Any appeal made by IDA Ireland has been taken based on exemptions provided for within the FOI legislation. These exemptions provide protection for matters such as commercially sensitive information, personal information or protection for the financial and economic interests of the State.

Appeals of OIC decisions must be made through the High Court. As such, in the instance that an FOI Decision is being appealed by IDA Ireland, the agency will seek external legal advice.

Finally, the IDA has noted the comments made by the Information Commissioner in his ‘Annual Report 2023’ regarding the growing occurrence of FOI bodies who appear to be contracting out their decision-making functions to external legal advisers. However, as the Deputy is aware, the law relating to Freedom of Information is a specialised area of law, requiring detailed knowledge of the governing legislation, the relevant legal principles, the relevant Office of the Information Commissioner (OIC) decisions and the relevant court decisions. Both because of the specialised nature of the legal issues involved, and the existing workload of its internal solicitors, IDA has relied on its panel of external law firms to advise the Agency in relation to these FOI requests.

As with all resourcing issues, this matter is kept under review by the Executive and Board of the IDA.