Individuals applying for non-personal information from a public body under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act can look for information on as many topics as they like for €15, once they include them all in the same initial request, according to a new Department of Finance directive.
Individuals who then wish to appeal some or all of a decision in relation to this request also only have to pay for one - rather than multiple - appeals. An internal review of any FOI decision costs €75, while a review by the Information Commissioner costs €150.
The directive, issued to FOI liaison officers last month, follows a trend whereby some public bodies were incorrectly splitting such requests and counting them as separate requests and/or decisions. These separate requests were then included in annual statistics on the level of FOI requests compiled by the department's central FOI policy unit.
In one recent case, a public body is understood to have received an FOI request which had over 30 different parts. The new directive clarifies that this should be treated as a single request, regardless of the level of work involved, and entailing the payment of one initial €15 fee.
Annual FOI statistics issued by the department have in the past been criticised by the Information Commissioner, Emily O'Reilly, after they highlighted a significant fall-off in the number of requests for non-personal information, typically from members of the media, after FOI fees were introduced in 2003.
But a spokeswoman for the department said it did not intend to revisit previous statistics on FOI activity in light of the revelation that some public bodies were incorrectly splitting such requests. This is because it believes such instances to be statistically small.
Analysis by the department has indicated, however, that some individual HSE areas, two Government ministries - including the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment - and up to six other Government bodies have been engaged in the practice of splitting FOI requests. However, it is understood this was primarily for administrative purposes, and did not lead to the bodies in question seeking more than the €15 preliminary fee in the first instance.
"The Department of Finance's central policy unit issued a directive to all FOI liaison officers on January 5th, 2007. This requested that, as and from January 1st, 2007, public bodies count each FOI request received as one request only, and count each decision as one decision only, regardless of the size or number of parts to the request," the spokeswoman said.
A spokesman for the office of the Information Commissioner said it was aware of the recent directive. However, it had not had to issue its own determination on the matter, as the issue had not been brought to its attention to date by way of an appeal.
Some FOI officers believe the level of work involved in processing multiple requests which are submitted together is not adequately reflected in annual FOI request statistics.
However, others point out that they can level significant search and retrieval charges in certain circumstances. They can also refuse to release information if the compilation of the material is considered so large that it will significantly impede upon the work of the body in question.
The most recent annual report of the Information Commissioner revealed that fewer than 1,000 FOI requests were made by journalists in 2005, compared to over 3,000 in 2001, a trend which Ms O'Reilly blamed on the introduction of fees in 2003.
The number of FOI requests made to public bodies covered by the Act during 2005 was 14,616, up 16 per cent. This was almost entirely accounted for by applications to the Department of Education for records by people applying to the Residential Institutions Redress Board.