O’Reilly calls for cut in FOI fees as requests drop by 50%

IRELAND’S information watchdog has called for a reduction in fees for Freedom of Information requests after she revealed applications were down by 50% since their imposition.

Information Commissioner Emily O’Reilly told the Dáil Finance sub-committee the fees were not even meeting the €15,000 spent on collecting them and were endangering the operation of the act.

She said she would be disappointed if some charges under the act, which were introduced by Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy, were not reduced.

Requests for information under the FOI Act now cost €15, an internal review costs €75 and an appeal to the Office of the Information Commissioner costs €150.

Ms O’Reilly said: “I should point out that Ireland is very much in the minority in charging fees for internal review and for an appeal to the Information Commissioner.

“In eight comparable jurisdictions looked at as part of the investigation, Ireland proved to be the only country which charges for internal review and is one of just two jurisdictions that charges for an appeal to the Information Commissioner.”

Since the charges were introduced the number of appeals to the Office of the Information Commissioner has dropped by 50%.

Ms O’Reilly said if the charges for an appeal to her office were not reduced, it would endanger the operation of the act.

“My role is to monitor how public bodies are implementing the act. If we don’t get the appeals, we can’t do that,” she said.

Ms O’Reilly was appearing before the finance sub-committee to discuss her annual report.

The chairman of the sub-committee, Fianna Fáil TD Sean Power said the charges had imposed a massive financial burden on the Government body.

“This committee would have no difficulty in saying the collection of these fees was a retrograde step,” he said.

Between the first quarter of 2003 and the first quarter of 2004 the number of FOI requests by journalists fell by 83% and there was also a sharp decline in requests from other sectors. The number of requests by businesses declined by 1,000 in the same period.

Labour TD Joan Burton asked what the FOI officers in the 400 bodies covered in the act were now doing. “I do sometimes wonder about that myself - in bodies that are receiving little applications,” said Ms O’Reilly.

On the issue of vexatious requests Ms O’Reilly said: “There is no empirical evidence to show they are there on a wide scale.”