Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 1 Jul 2003

Vol. 570 No. 2

Written Answers. - Freedom of Information.

Enda Kenny

Question:

414 Mr. Kenny asked the Minister for Health and Children the number of freedom of information requests received by his Department during each month from January 2002 to June 2003; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18622/03]

Minister for Health and Children (Mr. Martin):

There has been a significant increase in the number of freedom of information requests submitted to my Department over the past two years. This increase is attributed mainly to the number of people seeking records held about child care services, including records relating to placements in orphanages or other long-term care facilities.

In 2001 my Department received 448 requests. In 2002 the number increased to 997, over 50% of which were relating to people seeking personal information about their time, as children, spent in the care of the State. In 2003 to date, 525 requests have been received. The breakdown of requests logged by month is as follows:

	2002	2003
January	40	102
February	29	85
March	58	116
April	79	57
May	75	62
June	34	103*
July	84
August	125
September	164
October	151
November	81
December	77

*June 2003 provisional figures.

Due to an increase in requests for access to records of a personal nature, a special project known as the AIRR Project – Access to Institutional and Related Records – was established in 2002, for the purposes of identifying, indexing and making available all records of a personal nature held by the Department relating to the provision of child care services by the State. This project is ongoing.