Category: FOIs

Department of Finance FOI log Jan to Apr 2012

Part of an ongoing process. I understand that the Department plans to start publishing logs, so hopefully I won’t have to keep asking for these. This is the FOI log for the Department of Finance for January to April 2012.



Minister for Finance diary 1999

As part of an ongoing process. This is the appointments diary for Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy for 1999. It contains a number of interesting meetings, including two with Treasury Holdings, one with Jerry Conlan and one with Michael Fingleton.



The FOI process – a note of praise

It isn’t often here at thestory.ie that we feel in a position to praise a government body for how they handle an FOI request.

All too often there’s something odd about the search and retrieval fee, or the request comes in right at the end (or after) the 20 day period by which requests should be replied to. Or you ask for something in digital format and you get hundreds of printed pages in the post, sent by registered mail (crazily swallowing up a large portion of the €15 fee you paid in the first place). Or the FOI officer misapplies an exemption, or misinterprets their responsibilities, fails to apply a public interest test, fails to give a schedule of records or… I could go on.

Too often a system that’s supposed to be about transparency and openness, active citzenship, open government and all that good stuff, ends up becoming adversarial – a battle of wills between a requester and an administration that all too often sees access to information as a chore rather than as something that benefits us all, citizens and public bodies alike.

So credit where it’s due.

I sent a request two weeks ago to the Department of the Environment. To my astonishment I received two elements of my request back long before the working 20 days were up (This is how it’s supposed to work, often there seems to be sit-out-the-20-days policy, regardless of whether the information is ready). In the three years I’ve been doing FOIs, this is a rare event.

Not alone that, I got it all digitally by email, as requested, including a schedule of records and what exemptions were applied. This was quickly followed by the next element of the request from a different division, with similar results. A third element of the request was then carefully handled in terms of seeking to explain a difficulty with a portion of my request and suggesting an alternative path.

This is how FOI is supposed to work. If there were an FOI gold star for DECLG, I’d give it.

So to the FOI officers, including Mary Boothman and Noel Prunty, and all the good people at the Department of the Environment – cheers! 🙂

Minister for Environment diary 2012

Part of an ongoing process. This is the appointments diary of Environment Minister Phil Hogan from 2012. Some entries were deleted as they related to Parliamentary matters (s.22) and personal information of parties other than the requester (s.28)



Previously:

Minister for Environment Diary 2011
Minister for Environment Diary 2010
Minister for Environment Diary 2009
Minister for Environment Diary 1998

Minister for Environment diary 2011

Part of an ongoing process. This is the appointments diary of Environment Minister Phil Hogan from when he became Minister in March 2011 to December 2011. Some entries were deleted as they related to Parliamentary matters (s.22) and personal information of parties other than the requester (s.28)



Department of Environment FOI logs 2005 to 2012

The Department of the Environment is one of the few to pro-actively publish their FOI logs, and I am in the habit of collating them into one spreadsheet for ease of reference. People new to FOI often ask what they should ask for, logs are often a great way of discovering the types of things people ask for. Here is the FOI log of the Department from late 2004 to mid 2012:

Download as spreadsheet (File -> Download as)

Department of Finance expenditure 2008 to 2011

Following an FOI request I obtained Department of Finance expenditure for 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011. The data reveals spending of €99,698,862.33 in 15,360 rows. The largest single outgoings were to charities such as the Rehab Group and Gael Linn using lottery money. The Exchequer receives lottery monies directly from An Post National Lottery Company Limited – the Department then disburses the funds to other Departments or holds on to some of the money itself.

If you’re wondering where all the money paid out to advisers like Merrill Lynch and Rothschild is, that money was paid through the NTMA. The top single (not pivoted) outgoings over the four years were:

Amount Account Remarks Purchase Order Detail Company
€ 5,644,928.91 Charitable Lotteries Scheme, Rehab Group 4477
€ 5,625,488.26 Charitable Lotteries Scheme, Rehab Group 4477
€ 5,185,163.72 Charitable Lotteries Scheme, Rehab Group 4477
€ 2,000,000.00 ESRI One off payment, Econ. & Social Research Inst.(ESRI) 1284
€ 1,230,000.00 April – July 09 Grant-in-Aid, Institute of Public Administration 1,105
€ 1,180,005.00 Current Expenditure,Capital Expenditure, SEUPB Peace 3778
€ 1,154,140.00 current drawdown,capital drawdown, SEUPB Peace 3778
€ 964,995.00 PEACE II Drawdown May 2008,PEACE II Drawdown May 2008, SEUPB Peace 3778
€ 925,000.00 Jan – March Grand in Aid, Institute of Public Administration 1,105
€ 925,000.00 Grant-in-Aid Aug – Oct 09, Institute of Public Administration 1,105
€ 885,000.00 current expenditure,capital expenditure, SEUPB Peace 3778
€ 850,000.00 Grant-in-Aid (Jan – March), Institute of Public Administration 1,105
€ 850,000.00 Grant-In-Aid April – June, Institute of Public Administration 1,105
€ 850,000.00 Grant-in-aid July – Sept 2010, Institute of Public Administration 1,105
€ 850,000.00 July – Sept 2010 Grant in aid, Institute of Public Administration 1,105
€ 733,370.00 Current Programme Expenditure,Capital Programme Expenditure, SEUPB Peace 3778
€ 666,251.00 Peace III 3.1 current,Peace III 3.1 capital, SEUPB Peace III 8266
€ 657,500.00 Current Expenditure,capital expenditure, SEUPB-INTERREG 7027
€ 650,000.00 Jan/Feb 08 Grant in Aid, Institute of Public Administration 1,105
€ 650,000.00 March & April Grant-in-Aid, Institute of Public Administration 1,105
€ 650,000.00 May & June 08 Grant-in-Aid, Institute of Public Administration 1,105
€ 650,000.00 Grant-in-Aid July & August 08, Institute of Public Administration 1,105
€ 650,000.00 Sept and October 08, Institute of Public Administration 1,105
€ 650,000.00 Nov/Dec Grant-in-Aid, Institute of Public Administration 1,105
€ 628,000.00 Current expenditure,capital expenditure, SEUPB Peace III 8266
€ 627,500.00 INTERREG IIIA drawdown May ’08,INTERREG IIIA drawdown May ’08, SEUPB-INTERREG 7027
€ 620,000.00 Grant-in-Aid Final Balance 09, Institute of Public Administration 1,105
€ 618,797.45 Pension Levy Ain A DPER (307 PEAR) 11297
€ 610,413.50 Charitable Lotteries Scheme, Gael Linn 4476
€ 596,977.78 Charitable Lotteries Scheme, Gael Linn 4476
€ 590,000.00 Current expenditure,capital expenditure, SEUPB-INTERREG 7027
€ 564,034.40 Charitable Lotteries Scheme, Gael Linn 4476
€ 550,000.00 current drawdown,capital drawdown, SEUPB-INTERREG 7027
€ 545,000.00 Current Programme Spend,Capital Programme Spend, SEUPB-INTERREG 7027
€ 520,000.00 Re: Cork Créche, Suspense 08, O.P.W. Building and Maintenance 3726

Another interesting little nugget is the spending on lunches for the visits of the IMF in 2009 and 2010. The preferred venue for food was the Pearl Brasserie:

The full data (download here)

Political pensions: The costs

Political pensions and lump sums for former TDs, Ministers and Senators have cost nearly €2 million every single month over the past year and a half.

An estimated €32.7 million has been spent by the Oireachtas and Department of Finance since January 2011 on pensions for former politicians. The cost includes more than €9.5 million paid in lump sums to the record number of public representatives who retired after the last election. A further €1.5 million was paid out in termination lump sums with another €3.24 million given out in ‘termination payments’.

In total, once-off payments came to €14.35 million with a further €12.68 million paid on actual ongoing pension payments. A detailed breakdown of expenditure, which was first obtained by the Irish Mail on Sunday, shows that €371,234 has been paid out by the Oireachtas every single week since January 2011.

Around €5.2 million has been paid out during the same period in Ministerial pensions with a further €515,540 paid out in ‘severance’ payments. When the Department of Finance payments are taken into account, the weekly cost to the taxpayer has been €449,757 over the past seventeen months.

Many familiar names are in receipt of sizeable state pensions including Ivor Callely, Padraig Flynn and Ray Burke.

Expenditure by the Department of Finance on pensions is contained in the following parliamentary question.

This is the FOI request and a breakdown of the figures: