FOI, personal details, and data mining

Was just browsing some datasets on an Irish blog website about political and public admin matters (yes, I know it's a Saturday and the weather is good).

I came across some datasets released under FOI from different government departments and which contained expenses details along with the name of the individual civil servant who claimed the expenses, the date on which they were claimed and the details of the claim (from where and to where for travel for e.g.).

So, I'm wondering about whether the government departments were right to do this as I would have thought that the data released was not provided for that purpose, that S29 of the FOI Act would have come into play, and that mining the dataset (as the travel expenses are based on a set rate) could enable someone to identify where the individual civil servants lived (at least the area to within 1km radius for a single journey, though with triangulation to different locations it may be possible to identify the exact location) as well as identifying patterns in their absence from home on overnight stays.

In essence, there are two questions:
1. the FOI issue
2. privacy for an individual in performing their job

Any thoughts?

They people involved will more than likely be getting their travel expenses from their workplace rather than from their home.
There are tens of thousands of people all over the country who work night shifts and a lot of people would be aware of their work pattern.
Army and Navy personnel are often away from home for months at a time.