Vol. 489 No. 6
366 Mr. J. Bruton asked the Minister for Finance the number of information requests the Government estimates it will receive under the Freedom of Information Act, 1997 in its first year of implementation; and the proportion of these requests expected to relate to information which is personal to the applicants. [9093/98]
The number of requests received under the Freedom of Information Act will depend very much on the response of the general public to commencement of the Act. Having regard to the particular provisions of the Act, it is not practicable to estimate likely take up of the Act on the basis of overseas experience. As regards the proportion of requests that relate to personal information of applicants, the experience abroad is that in the region of 90 per cent of requests fall into this category.
