FOI requests down 50% since fee applied

FREEDOM of Information requests to Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s office have dropped by half since fees were introduced for queries.

There were 142 submissions for information from his department in 2003.

Details made available to the houses of the oireachtas by Mr Ahern on Wednesday revealed that Freedom of Information claims have considerably fallen since then. A mere 71 requests were submitted to Mr Ahern’s office for the whole of last year — half the amount made in 2003, when charges were introduced for handling queries.