The €15 fee for Freedom of Information requests will be abolished under reforms being brought in by Public Spending Minister Brendan Howlin.

The changes will be introduced in the context of the enactment of the FOI Bill, 2013, Mr Howlin said.

“Over the last number of months I have concluded that Ireland’s fees regime for FOI required a radical overhaul.

“The €15 application fee will be abolished for all FOI requests and the Search, Retrieval and Copying fees will only apply where the preparation time for a request exceeds 5 hours. In other words, the vast majority of FOI requests will now be free of charge,” he said.

“The FOI fees measures which I am putting in place restore the balance in relation to FOI fees envisaged in that path-breaking legislation. These reforms will allow our citizens access to information on a level par with best practice across the OECD. After all, information and data are the currencies of the new age,” he added.

Online Editors