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Annual Report 2005 - Text Version
Applications to my Office for review
Where a requester is not satisfied with the decision of the public body on his/her FOI request, he/she may apply to my Office for a review of that decision. In most circumstances, this review will constitute the third analysis and decision in that case. The decision which follows my review is legally binding and can be appealed to the High Court, but only on a point of law.
The number of applications for review made to my Office during 2005 totalled 380. This represented a decrease of 54 cases or 12% on 2004. As indicated in Chapter 5 (Table 13), 285 of these applications were accepted for review during 2005. This is compared to 333 during 2004. This fall-off is accounted for by a reduction in the number of review applications made in respect of personal information which are now at their lowest level since 1998. Whilst the number of personal requests made to the Department of Education and Science increased significantly during 2005, the fact that the deadline for applying to the Residential Institution Redress Board expired during the year meant, unlike previous years, that very few requesters appealed the Department’s decision to my Office. I am happy to report that the low appeal rate also reflects well on the Department’s handling of such requests. However, it is also likely that some of the decline was due to confusion amongst requesters as to whether an application fee was payable to my Office for a review of a decision relating to personal information.
The proportion of cases appealed to my Office, and accepted for review, as a percentage of the total number of requests received by public bodies was 2% compared to 2.5% in 2004 and 6% in 2003. A breakdown of the public bodies concerned and the subject matter of review applications accepted is contained in Chapter 5 (Tables 15 and 17). It is significant that the number of third party objections to the release of information has increased steadily from 3% in 2003, to 8.7% in 2004 and to 13.7% in 2005. This increase is largely accounted for by decisions taken by public bodies to release, in the public interest, requests for inspection records of nursing homes and child care services. In Chapter 3, I comment further on the problems that are being encountered in relation to section 29 of the FOI Act which relates to the issue of third party consultations by public bodies.
