Ensuring Access to Environmental Information

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The role of the Commissioner for Environmental Information is to decide on appeals by members of the public who are not satisfied with the outcome of their requests to public authorities for environmental information.

Recent Decisions

Right to Know CLG and the Office of the Secretary General to the President (the OSGP) The Commissioner found that, in the circumstances of this case, Article 13.8.1° of the Constitution precludes the Council of State and the OSGP from being subject to the review procedure under Article 6 of the AIE Directive. He found that for the purposes of this review, neither the OSGP nor the Council of State is a public authority within the meaning of article 3 of the AIE Regulations, as amended by S.I. No. 309 of 2018 European Communities (Access to Information on the Environment) (Amendment) Regulations 2018. Accordingly, he found that he has no jurisdiction to review the OSGP's decision on this AIE request. Read more

Ms Fand Cooney and Coillte Teoranta (Coillte) The Commissioner was not satisfied that Coillte adequately responded to this AIE request or that its decision was justified. He therefore annulled Coilltes decision and required it to process the request afresh. He considered that the parties should engage with one another so that, if the appellant wishes to pursue the request, there could be greater clarity as to what environmental information is both sought and held, and if access to requested information is refused, greater clarity as to the reasons for that refusal. Read more

Dr Ted Nealon and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) The Commissioner found that some of the withheld information was outside of the scope of his review because it fell outside of the date-range specified by the appellant. He noted that the appellant excluded three of the withheld records from the scope of his appeal. The Commissioner found that the remaining withheld information does not constitute or contain environmental information. Accordingly, he affirmed the EPAs decision while amending the reasons for refusal to reflect his findings. Read more