Decisions List

Summary of Commissioner's Decision: The Commissioner found that the Council's decision was not justified, because it did not find that the requested information was not held by another natural or legal person on its behalf. The Commissioner found that the information was not held by or for the Council, and, accordingly, he affirmed refusal of the request

The Commissioner found that the Company does not hold information captured by parts 2 and 3 of the request. He found that it holds information captured by part 4 of the request and this information contains environmental information.

In accordance with article 12(5) of the Regulations, the Commissioner reviewed RTÉ's decision on the appellant's request. He found that RTÉ's letter of 20 January 2016 constituted a refusal of the appellant's request, and that the appellant's subsequent internal review request was in accordance with article 11 and was not premature. Notwithstanding this, the Commissioner found that refusal of the appellant's request was justified under article 9(2)(a), as the request was manifestly unreasonable having regard to the volume and range of information sought. He considered the public interest test under article 10(3) and found that the public interest in disclosure of information did not outweigh the interests served by refusal in this case.

The Commissioner found that CER's refusal decision was not justified, because CER had not properly considered whether the information which it held contained environmental information within the scope of the request. Accordingly, the Commissioner annulled CER's decision and expressed his expectation that CER would make a fresh decision in accordance with the AIE Regulations.

The Commissioner found that the Council was not justified in refusing the request for the reason given. However, he accepted that the Council later established that it does not hold any environmental information of interest to the appellant. Accordingly, he affirmed the refusal decision, while varying the ground of justification to “information not held”.

In accordance with article 12(5) of the Regulations, the Commissioner reviewed the Council's internal review decision on the appellant's request. The Commissioner found that the Council was not justified in applying the ground for refusal under article 9(2)(d). He found that article 10(1) applied to information held by the Council concerning the time and location of the incident, and the composition of chemicals emitted from the Smithstown facility. He found that the grounds for refusal concerning personal information and the interests of third parties under articles 8(a)(i) and (ii) do not apply in this case, since the appellant consented to the redaction of information identifying fire brigade staff and persons who contacted the emergency services. Under article 12(5)(c) of the AIE Regulations, the Commissioner required the Council to make three incident reports available to the appellant, subject to the removal from the reports of names of individual fire brigade staff, and subject to the removal of names and contact details of persons who contacted the emergency services in connection with the Smithstown incident.