The Government's decision to impose charges for Freedom of Information Act requests will be put under review next April, the Information Commissioner, Ms Emily O'Reilly, has said.
Her declaration came after figures released to the Dáil revealed that the number of applications has more than halved since the legislation was restricted six months ago.
The decline has accelerated since new charges came into effect in July, which mean that an FOI request, if appealed all the way up to the Information Commissioner, could now cost €240.
Applications, except ones seeking access to personal files, cost €15, internal appeals cost €75, while final appeals to the Information Commissioner cost €150. However, Government Departments and other public bodies have also begun to charge significant fees, often running into hundreds of euro, for search and retrieval and copying.
Speaking to a conference organised by Public Affairs Ireland, the Information Commissioner said it would be "unusual" if the extra costs had led to "no slippage" in applications.
"Notwithstanding that, it is still too early accurately to measure the effect of the fees. The figures released this week do not compare like with like," she told the conference."I very much regret that my office was not consulted about the decision to introduce these fees, or about the drafting of the regulations.
"While the Minister was not obliged to consult, an important opportunity was lost to carry out a full review of the Act and to introduce a more well-considered charging regime." Next year's review will be a detailed one, she promised, and would compare the number of requests made before and after the charges were brought in.
She said she would examine whether there is "evidence that more requests are being refused because of the fee barriers now mounted against internal reviews and reviews by my office.
"The culture of openness through Freedom of Information has gone some way towards ensuring objectivity and sound decision-making in the public service. One thing is sure - the previous lack of transparency and accountability inherent in 'secret' processes could only serve to foster mistrust and allegations of bias," she declared. The number of appeals to her office has continued to grow this year, though 79 per cent of the 806 received up to September concern personal files and are subject to charge. Clearly urging officials to adopt a liberal policy on the release of information, Ms O'Reilly said many requests cover items that are of "interest to more than one person".
Such information "it is worth remembering is owned ultimately by the people, not by the organisations which have created the records or which hold the records".
