Decisions

In accordance with article 12(5) of the AIE Regulations, the Commissioner reviewed the Department's decision. He found that processing the AIE request would place an unreasonable administrative burden on the Department so that the AIE request was manifestly unreasonable under article 9(2)(a). He went on to find that the interest in maintaining the exception in article 9(2)(a) outweighed the public interest in disclosing the information sought. He affirmed the Department's decision.

The Commissioner reviewed ABP’s decision and found that refusal was not justified in relation to most of the environmental information on the file sought. He varied ABP’s decision and having considered the matter, he now requires release of the information requested with the exception of the third party information that was not accepted for consideration.

Whether NSAI’s refusal of the AIE request on the ground that the requested information is not environmental information within the meaning of article 3(1) of the AIE Regulations was justified

In accordance with article 12(5) of the AIE Regulations, the Commissioner reviewed the decision of the OPW and found that it was justified in refusing the request for additional documents or records under article 7(5) of the Regulations. He affirmed the decision of the OPW accordingly.

Summary of Commissioner's Decision: The Commissioner found that BIM’s refusal of the request was not justified since it was a deemed refusal without reasons. Accordingly, he annulled that decision. He decided that it would not be appropriate for him to require BIM to provide the appellant with the requested environmental information since its non-disclosure is justified on the ground of article 8(a)(iv) of the AIE Regulations.

Summary of Commissioner's Decision: The Commissioner found that the Council’s refusal of the request was not justified. He decided that it would not be appropriate to require the Council to make environmental information available to the appellant at this stage. He expressed his expectation that the Council will deliver a valid initial decision on the request to the appellant without further delay, but in any case no later than 12 July 2018.

Summary of Commissioner's Decision: The Commissioner found that TII’s decision to refuse to grant access to the requested information was not justified by the reasons given. However, he decided that the request was manifestly unreasonable within the meaning of article 9(2)(a) and varied TII’s decision to rely instead on that ground. He did not require TII to provide the appellant with access to the requested information.

Summary of Commissioner's Decision: The Commissioner found that refusal to provide access to some of the requested information was justified because TII did not hold it. He found that refusal to provide access to other information in the requested format on the grounds of inability was reasonable and therefore justified. He found that refusal to provide access to metadata, for no stated reason, was not justified. However, he accepted TII’s later assurance that it did not hold such information and found that refusal would have been justified on that ground. The Commissioner varied TII’s decision to reflect his findings.

The Commissioner held that RPS was not a public authority for the purposes of the AIE Regulations. The Commissioner accepted that RPS was not government or other public administration, including a public advisory body under article 3(1)(a). Neither was it a natural or legal person performing public administrative functions under national law under article 3(1)(b) of the AIE Regulations. He found that RPS, a private company contracted by Wexford County Council through a public procurement process to carry out noise monitoring on wind farms in County Wexford, did not have public responsibilities or functions nor was it providing public services. Accordingly, the Commissioner found that RPS was not a public authority under 3(1)(c) of the AIE Regulations.

As in the course of this review the Department located further information relevant to the AIE request, the Commissioner found that the Department’s decision that access had been granted to all information held by or for it falling within the scope of the AIE request was not justified. The Commissioner varied the Department’s decision and found that it had, at this point in time, taken all reasonable steps to search for and provide the appellant with the information within the scope of the request. He went on to find that article 7(5) of the AIE Regulations applied to those aspects of the request for which information was not provided.