Seanad debates
Thursday, 20 March 2003
Freedom of Information (Amendment) Bill 2003: Report and Final Stages.
This also arises from a discussion on Committee Stage. The Bill, as formulated, allows a decision maker to take into account the fact that a requester has not paid a fee in the past and on this basis not to respond to a request. On Committee Stage we sought to constrain that period to 12 months and are now extending it to 24 months. The amendment proposes that failure to pay a fee within the previous 24 months should be taken into account. However, there should be a cut-off point in order that a failure to pay a fee many years previously would not be taken into account.
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