Freedom of Information Data

Wednesday, 4 December 2019

Questions (214)

Barry Cowen

Question:

214. Deputy Barry Cowen asked the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the number of freedom of information requests made to his Department in each of the years 2016 to 2018 and to date in 2019; the number of requests fully denied by reason; the number of requests partially denied; the number of appeals made against denials; the number of such appeals upheld; the number of such appeals rejected; the number of requests that required a fee; the amount received for freedom of information requests in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [50605/19]

View answer

Written answers

Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport

The information requested is contained in the following table.

	2016	2017	2018	2019*
Total no. of FOI requests received	302	344	391	407
FOI Refused	85	93	96	96
FOI Part-granted	97	121	135	119
Total no. of Internal Reviews Received	7	11	10	15
Internal Review Decisions Upheld	5	4	5	8
Internal Review Decisions Varied	1	2	0	5
Internal Review Decisions Pending	0	0	0	1
Internal Review Decisions Annulled	1	1	3	0
Internal Reviews Applications Rejected/Not Valid	0	4	2	1
Total of S & R Fees charged	€120	€140	€240	€295

* end November

The Department does not have ready access to the information relating to the number of individual FOI requests where fees were requested. However the total amount of search and retrieval fees received for each year is set out in the table above and the total for the period 2016- 2019 to date is €795.

Similarly we do not have data readily available on the reasons each of the FOIs in the period were refused or part-granted. The Department has a list or disclosure log of all non-personal FOIs asked and the decisions taken on each on its website at: https://www.gov.ie/en/collection/c67965-foi-disclosure-logs-2016/ . My officials will be happy to provide further information relating to particular FOI requests identified by the Deputy.