Advocates of the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act were passionate about how it would have a transforming effect on our society and the citizen's relationship with the State. It may be too soon to pronounce on such weighty matters but documents which have come the way of the Margin show one unexpected side effect of the FoI legislation: a drop in the price citizens have to pay for copies of their own X-rays.

The Department of Finance was concerned to work out the price which should be charged if X-rays were being released following a FoI request for which charges were being imposed. It concluded that the cost of taking an X-ray was £3.32 (€4.22) based on the 5.5 minutes it took to take an average X-ray, divided into a 7.8-hour day, and with £282.23 being the "acute hospital average daily cost" used by the accountancy profession. Adding on the cost of the film, at £1.60, led to a final price of £5.

This came as a bit of a blow to health boards. As the documentation notes: "Previously, a charge of £75 for medical files and X-rays was levied no matter what volume was involved. This now represents a major reduction in charges and income to the boards." It is estimated that the introduction of the new pricing structure will cost the health boards about £150,000 per annum. That's transparency for you.