Freedom of Information Data

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 5 December 2017

Tuesday, 5 December 2017

Questions (419)

John McGuinness

Question:

419. Deputy John McGuinness asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of freedom of information requests received by his Department to date in 2017; the number for which the period of consideration was completed within four weeks of receipt of the request; and the number for which the period of consideration was extended by up to four weeks in view of the fact that the necessary resources to complete the request within the original timeframe were not available, in tabular form. [51861/17]

Written answers

Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine

As of 30 November 2017, my Department received 368 requests under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, of which 307 are finalised and the remaining 61 are currently being processed in accordance with the provisions of the Act. 

Section 14 of the FOI Act allows the standard 4 week time limit for dealing with requests to be extended only in certain very limited circumstances, as follows:

- where the request relates to such a number of records that compliance with the standard 4 week time period is not reasonably possible, or

- where the number of other FOI requests relating to the particular record(s) sought or to information corresponding to that to which the request relates, are such that compliance with the standard 4 week time period is not reasonably possible.

My Department availed of these provisions in the case of eight FoI requests, as set out in the following table.

Number of FOI Requests Received	No. of requests where Section 14 Extension was applied
368	8