Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 28 February 2017
481. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the legal fees incurred on FOI requests received by his Department; the staff hours involved in the processing of FOI requests for the past three years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9683/17]
View answerIn response to the Deputy's question, my Department has not incurred any legal fees on FOI requests. My Department has a dedicated FOI Unit, the staff of which receive, allocate, monitor and administer all FOI requests. The requests are allocated to Decision Makers in the area relevant to the request and they conduct a complete retrieval and review of all relevant records for the request. There has been a significant increase in the number of FOI requests received since 2014, as set out in the table below:
|
Year |
Number of requests processed |
|
2014 |
206 |
|
2015 |
309 |
|
2016 |
349 |
The processing of FOI requests is part of the normal work of each division and my Department does not record the staff hours involved in processing FOI requests, apart from instances where a search and retrieval fee is to be charged.
