Labour calls on Government to scrap charges on FoI requests

THE Government should scrap the contentious charges it introduced in 2003 for Freedom of Information Act requests, the Labour Party said yesterday.

The party’s finance spokeswoman Joan Burton said that parliamentary questions put to all 15 Government departments had revealed that a paltry €20,000 had been charged this year.

She said that the surprisingly low figure gave the lie to the Government’s claim that the charges were introduced to cover the costs of running the FoI scheme.