Noonan drafts in extra staff to clear FOI backlog

Finance Minister Michael Noonan has confirmed that his department has deployed eight additional Freedom of Information (FOI) decision-makers to deal with the spiralling number of requests made to his department.

The Government removed the €15 administration fee attached to FOI requests for non-personal information late last year and according to Mr Noonan, this has contributed to FOI requests at his department increasing by 256% for the first nine months of this year.

At the end of September 2014, 92 FOI requests had been received compared to 328 at the end of the same period this year.