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Annual Report Annual Report Supporting the Right to Information 2 Information Commissioner Annual Report 2020 2021 ©Government of Ireland Office of the Information Commissioner 6 Earlsfort Terrace Dublin 2 D02 W773 Tel: (01) 639 5689 Email: [email protected] Website: www.oic.ie ISSN: 1649-0479 Designed by: wonder works Information Commissioner 3 Annual Report 2020 Annual Report 2020 4 Information Commissioner Annual Report 2020 Contents Foreword 6 Part 1 – Information Commissioner Performance Summary 8 Chapter 1: The year in review 11 Your right to information 11 Introduction 12 Office Developments in 2020 14 Case Management System 14 Office Green Team 14 Human Rights – Public Sector Duty 14 Irish Language Scheme 15 Statutory notices issued to public bodies 15 Key FOI statistics for the year 18 Office of the Information Commissioner caseload 22 Statutory Certificates issued by Ministers 30 Acknowledgment 31 Chapter 2: OIC activity in 2020 33 Covid-19 and the processing of FOI requests 33 OIC outreach programme 2020 34 Section 6 determinations 35 Section 41 - non-disclosure provisions 37 Appeals to the Courts 38 Re-use of public sector information 43 Information Commissioner 5 Annual Report 2020 Chapter 3: Decisions 47 Formal decisions 47 Decisions of interest 47 Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection 48 An Bord Pleanála 49 Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) 50 Department of the Taoiseach 51 Dublin West Education Centre 53 Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade 55 Department of Defence 56 Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport 57 The Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media 58 Department of Public Expenditure and Reform 59 Department of the Taoiseach 60 Galway County Council 61 Chapter 4: Statistics 63 Section I - Public Bodies - 2020 63 Section II - Office of the Information Commissioner - 2020 64 Part 2 – OCEI Executive Summary 78 Introduction 78 Chapter 1 - The Year in Review 80 Chapter 2 - Some Decisions of Interest 88 Chapter 3 - Court Appeals 91 Looking Ahead to 2020 96 Appendices Appendix I Statutory Certificates issued by Ministers in 2020 99 6 Information Commissioner Annual Report 2020 Foreword I hereby submit my eighth Annual Report as Information Commissioner to the Dáil and Seanad pursuant to section 47(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2014. This is the twenty-third Annual Report of the Information Commissioner since the establishment of the Office in 1998. Peter Tyndall Information Commissioner July 2021 Information Commissioner 7 Annual Report 2020 Elaine Cassidy Director General 8 Chapter 1: The year in review Performance Summary 4 Our Public body 5 57% 65% statutory notices were 32% of reviews on hand at of reviews accepted by my performance of all reviews closed compliance issued to public bodies within four months, and year-end were less than Oce were deemed refused by my Oce in 2020, the at both stages of the FOI 97% within 12 months. six months old – down lowest since the from 83% in 2019. request, up from 19% in introduction of the 2014 2019. Act. 46 Demand 45% 50% OCEI received 46 appeals in 37 172 for our Reviews deemed refused at Reviews deemed refused at cases on hand at year-end – 2020. OCEI cases closed in 2020. the second stage of the the first stage of the request, just under 22% increase services request, up from 29% in up from 28% in 2019 to 49% on 2019. 2019 to 45% in 2020. in 2020. FOI 584 12% 434 applications for review made increase in the annual We accepted 434 99% usage 31,591 of all applications to my Oce to my Oce in 2020, just requests made to public number of requests applications for review were accepted within 10 days. under 5% less than in 2019. bodies in 2020 – a decrease made to public bodies in 2020 – 5% less than of 21% on 2019. since 2015 in 2019. Information Commissioner 9 Annual Report 2020 4 Our Public body 5 57% 65% statutory notices were 32% of reviews on hand at of reviews accepted by my performance of all reviews closed compliance issued to public bodies within four months, and year-end were less than Oce were deemed refused by my Oce in 2020, the at both stages of the FOI 97% within 12 months. six months old – down lowest since the from 83% in 2019. request, up from 19% in introduction of the 2014 2019. Act. 46 Demand 45% 50% OCEI received 46 appeals in 37 172 for our Reviews deemed refused at Reviews deemed refused at cases on hand at year-end – 2020. OCEI cases closed in 2020. the second stage of the the first stage of the request, just under 22% increase services request, up from 29% in up from 28% in 2019 to 49% on 2019. 2019 to 45% in 2020. in 2020. FOI 584 12% 434 applications for review made increase in the annual We accepted 434 99% usage 31,591 of all applications to my Oce to my Oce in 2020, just requests made to public number of requests applications for review were accepted within 10 days. under 5% less than in 2019. bodies in 2020 – a decrease made to public bodies in 2020 – 5% less than of 21% on 2019. since 2015 in 2019. 10 Chapter 1: The year in review 1 The year in review Information Commissioner 11 Annual Report 2020 Chapter 1: The year in review Your right to information Freedom of Information The FOI Act 2014 provides for a general right of access to records held by public bodies and also provides that records should be released unless they are found to be exempt. The Act gives people the right to have personal information about them held by public bodies corrected or updated and gives people the right to be given reasons for decisions taken by public bodies, where those decisions expressly affect them. The primary role of the Office of the Information Commissioner is to conduct independent reviews of decisions made by public bodies on FOI requests, where members of the public are dissatisfied with responses to those requests. As Information Commissioner, I have a further role in reviewing and publishing commentaries on the practical operation of the Act. The FOI Act applies to all bodies that conform to the definition of public body in Section 6(1) of the Act (unless they are specifically exempt or partially exempt under the provisions of Section 42 or Schedule 1 of the Act). Bodies such as government departments and offices, local authorities, the Health Service Executive, voluntary hospitals, and universities are included. As new public bodies are established, they will automatically be subject to FOI unless they are specifically exempt by order made by the Minister. Access to Information on the Environment (AIE) The European Communities (Access to Information on the Environment) Regulations 2007 to 2014 provide an additional means of access for people who want environmental information. The right of access under the AIE Regulations applies to environmental information held by or for a public authority. The primary role of the Commissioner for Environmental Information is to review decisions taken by public authorities on requests for environmental information. Both access regimes are legally independent of each other, as are my roles of Information Commissioner and Commissioner for Environmental Information. 12 Chapter 1: The year in review Re-use of Public Sector Information The European Communities (Re-use of Public Sector Information) (Amendment) Regulations 2015 (S.I. No. 525 of 2015) provide that the Information Commissioner is designated as the Appeal Commissioner. As such, my Office can review decisions taken by public bodies in relation to requests made under the Regulations to re-use public sector information, including decisions on fees and conditions imposed on re-use of such information. Introduction It is unsurprising that my report on the performance of my Office during 2020 draws attention to the considerable impact the Covid-19 pandemic has had on the delivery of FOI services across the wider public service in 2020. While the impact on some front-line service providers was enormous and had profound effects on their ability to ensure continuity of services, it was not just front-line providers that were affected. Its impact reached all aspects of public service delivery and my Office did not escape untouched. Demand for my Office’s services in 2020 was broadly in line with the demand levels of recent years. Nevertheless, like the entire public sector, we experienced significant challenges in meeting that demand as a result of the pandemic. With only a small window for planning and implementation, our entire staff moved off-site to new remote working arrangements in March 2020 on foot of rapidly-evolving public health advice regarding the spread of Covid-19. Unfortunately, we had to leave behind, temporarily, a newly refurbished Office that we had moved to only four months previously. This move required a huge effort by our staff who, by and large, were completely unused to conducting their duties off-site. Notably, our ICT department was swift in managing to ensure that staff could connect securely to our internal systems from their remote working locations. I am very grateful to every member of staff for the resilience and flexibility they demonstrated in the past year, migrating to the arrangements necessitated by the pandemic, which has brought with it so many other challenges to our individual lives. I should add that I was also heartened by the number of my staff who volunteered to redeploy in order to support the national effort in contact tracing during the earliest stages of the government’s response to the pandemic.
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