The Office of the Information Commissioner is an independent body that reviews decisions public bodies make on requests for access to records under the Freedom of Information Act 2014. This document sets out our commitments and the service standards you can expect from us.
If you contact us by telephone we will aim to:
If you send us a letter, email or online enquiry we will:
If you apply for a review of a decision taken by a public body, we will:
If you visit us in person we will:
We will assist people who wish to carry out their business with us through Irish
If something goes wrong and you are not satisfied with our service, please tell us. We have a policy for handling complaints against members of staff, which is available on our website or you can ask for details by contacting us directly
You can help us as we try to give you a high quality service:
We are always interested to hear suggestions on how we can improve our service. If you would like to comment or make a suggestion please e-mail us at info@oic.ie
This document is available on our website www.oic.ie. You can also find details of our other services, policies and contact information on our website.
We expect public bodies to:
· Give people clear and timely decisions on their FOI requests
· Make people aware of our service when giving them their decision
· Treat people who make requests, and our staff, with courtesy and respect
· Work with us to enable us carry out our reviews as quickly and effectively as
possible
· Give us all the information we ask for within the timescales specified
Our full contact details are available on the “Contact” webpage.
Our address is Office of the Information Commissioner, 6 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, D02 W773. The Office is open Monday to Friday between 9.15 am and 5.00 pm.
Phone: +353 1 639 5689
Email: info@oic.ie
FOI officer: info@oic.ie
Data protection officer: dataprotection@ombudsman.ie
Usually, you will be asked to write your complaint to the Director General. Sometimes complaints may be made to the Office of the Information Commissioner on the telephone, by calling into the office, or by fax or e-mail.
If your complaint is considered a serious one, the Director General will ask a staff member to act as a Complaints Officer. The Complaints Officer will examine your complaint and make recommendations about it to the Director General.
Documents about your complaint must be kept in a separate file and not held on the personnel file of the person you have complained about.
The staff member you have complained about will be shown all the evidence gathered by the Complaints Officer, including your complaint, and given a chance to respond to this evidence by the Complaints Officer.
In all cases, the person you have complained about will be allowed to comment on the final letter to you before it is sent to you.
If the staff member and the Complaints Officer disagree about the outcome of the examination, the Director General will look at the issue again. The decision of the Director General will be final. Any decision reached will not affect the rights of any individual under Finance Circular 11/2001. This outlines how complaints about the civil service are handled. Due to the Office of the Information Commissioner’s obligations under data protection legislation, we will not be able to share information with you about internal staffing matters. Such matters are deemed to be personal information under the relevant legislation and, as such, confidential. This means that we cannot let you know about any action taken against the staff member as a result of your complaint.
The final letter should be cleared through the Director General and, if appropriate, the Information Commissioner, before it is sent to you.
Each complaint will be dealt with individually. If action is recommended by the Complaints Officer, it will be up to the Director General to make a decision about that recommendation.
The Complaints Officer may recommend action to the Director General that will prevent the same problem happening again.