FoI in Northern Ireland: Annual Report

FoI in Northern Ireland: Annual Report

Freedom of Information requests were condemned last year as being abused by "lazy journalists", but the media was responsible for only 11% of them.

The details are contained in the Northern Ireland government's annual report on Freedom of Information.

It said the 11 NI government departments received a total of 3,164 such requests during 2007.
Of these 62% were from members of the public, 13% from businesses and 11% from the media.
Solicitors, public representatives and researchers account for the remaining 14%.

Press behind 11% of FoI requests (BBC News, 8 August 2008)