FOI 148 Timeline
18 May 2015
FOI request submitted to the Department of Finance “All correspondence between the Department and IBRC Management concerning the special liquidation process (contributing factors to and consequences of) in the period 1st December 2012 – 28th February 2013.”
19 June 2015
Response from Department of Finance received, requesting additional time to an unspecified deadline.
End July 2015
Phone calls made to the Department requesting advice on the expected delivery time. Response was that the workload required significant time to assemble.
25 August 2015
Request made to Department to provide an overview of ongoing FOI requests, reply received on September 7 th indicating response on 148/15 was imminent.
23 September 2015
After no communication received, request for internal review of FOI 148/15 initiated with Department.
15 October 2015
Request for review by Information Commissioner initiated, after three week period of no acknowledgement from the Department.
16 October 2015
Acknowledgement letter regarding internal review request of 148/15 received in the morning. A subsequent phone call was received from the Department apologising for the delay, advising that a final decision had been issued in respect of 148/15 and requesting me to ‘re-initiate’ the application for an internal review. This was clearly an incorrect approach to take, as subsequently found by the Information Commissioner. This request was refused as the matter had already been escalated to the Information Commissioner. The physical documentation containing the decision on 148/15 was hand delivered to the Oireachtas that afternoon. The documentation amounted to two letters only, which seems to contradict the previous claim that a significant amount of work was necessary to comply with the terms of the request.
8 February 2016
Decision of Information Commissioner made annulling Department’s original decision and directing release of previously redacted information.