Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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107. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the reason no formal acknowledgment was issued by his Department to members of the CIÉ 1951 pension scheme in relation to their freedom of information requests (details supplied). [43808/24]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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The initial Freedom of Information (FoI) request relating to the CIÉ 1951 Pension Scheme was received into my Department on the 14th of October 2024.

I can confirm that my Department is processing this request in line with the requirements of the FoI Act, 2014. I can further confirm that an acknowledgment issued to the initial requestor advising them of this on the 18th of October. Any records deemed releasable under the initial FoI request will be made available by my Department once the final decision has issued.

Regarding the remaining c. 160 FoI requests, I can confirm that my Department contacted all of the subsequent FoI requestors, asking them to consider withdrawing their FoI request within 5 working days. These emails advised that the initial request would be answered, and that the releasable records would be made available once the final decision was made. Given the similarities of these requests, the Department considers that the requests form part of a pattern of unreasonable requests which in the Department's opinion appear to have been made acting in concert, and as such they are subject to refusal under Section 15(1)(i)(ii) of the Freedom of Information Act, 2014 which states that “A head to whom an FOI request is made may refuse to grant the request where the request relates to records already released, either to the same or a previous request where it appears to the head concerned that the requester is acting in concert with a previous requester.”

Regarding your query on the time to issue an acknowledgement timeframe, please refer to the FoI Act, 2014, Section 12(2):

“12. (2) The head shall cause the receipt by him or her of a request under subsection (1) to be notified, in writing or in such other form as may be determined, to the requester concerned as soon as may be but not later than 2 weeks after such receipt, and the notification shall include a summary of the provisions of section 19 and particulars of the rights of review under this Act, the procedure governing the exercise of those rights, and the time limits governing such exercise, in a case to which that section applies.”

Under the Act, officials have 10 working days to issue an acknowledgment from the first day of a request. Given the large number of FoIs received, 160+, since the 14th of October, these requests have placed a significant administrative burden on departmental officials. However, my officials are working on responding to all of the requests and individual response letters and unique FOI reference numbers will be issued to the requests within the 10 working day statutory requirement.