Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation

Section 8(4) of the 1997 FOI Act was amended in 2003. Originally, section 8(4) provided that any reason given by the requester for making a request, or any belief or opinion of the FOI body as to what those reasons were, was to be disregarded. The FOI Amendment Act 2003 inserted the words “Subject to the provisions of this Act” at the beginning of this provision. I would like copies of records that would shed light on the background to this amendment.