Freedom of Information

Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 9 September 2021

Thursday, 9 September 2021

Ceisteanna (387)

Matt Carthy

Ceist:

387. Deputy Matt Carthy asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the number of freedom of information requests responded to by his Department in each of the years 2016 to 2020 and to date in 2021; the number of responses that included documents related to text messages and other phone message communications such as messages sent through an application (details supplied) in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42968/21]

Freagraí scríofa

Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage

The number of Freedom of Information requests responded to by my Department each year since 2016 is set out in the table below.

Year	Number of requests responded to
2016	281
2017	286
2018	371
2019	246
2020	254
2021 (as at 3 Sept)	193

In line with the Freedom of Information Act and Code of Practice, my Department publishes a disclosure log of FOI requests on a quarterly basis. The logs are available at: www.gov.ie/en/collection/24ae9-foi-request-logs/.

Details of the FOI requests responded to, including a description of the request, the origin of the request and the decision, are contained in the logs. Information in respect of the sort of documents included in individual responses is not maintained. Its compilation would involve a disproportionate amount of time and work as it would necessitate the examination of each request responded to.

Should the Deputy wish to submit a further more specific question in relation to a particular FOI request, I will endeavour to provide the information.